Palakkad red rice and our heritage

India’s now-eased lockdown has forced even the strongest opponent of tech billionaires to try and source some groceries online. One of the boons of this reliance on e-commerce for Malayalis is the
nationwide availability of Matta rice from the fields of Palakkad. Those who live in localities (outside Kerala) that don’t have many Malayali residents would find it next to impossible to get this variety at the local grocery store. 

The change in diet from the polished white rice to this fine red variety has proven beneficial to this writer in many ways. Besides the obvious nutritional benefits that come with Matta rice, there is the compatibility of Kerala and particularly Palakkad cuisine with this variety. Erishery, sambar and any kind of upperi goes great with this variety...

Read my latest column for Manorama Online here.  

The summer of Covid-19 in Bombay

Old readers of this blog know that I absolutely love the months of April and May in Bombay. The humidity doesn't really bother me that much. There's always a nice cold glass of aam panna waiting for me when I get home. I love the flowering trees, the longer days. We don't exactly have White Nights here, but the sun does set after 7 pm in May and there are traces of daylight till around 8 pm.

The best part of a Bombay summer is the reduced traffic on account of schools being shut, and the fact that many families leave the city for long vacations.

Although I spent most of the Covid-19 summer indoors, I did have to step out for fruits, vegetables and some groceries. What I did notice is that it was much cooler this year than the years past. This obviously is because cabs, private cars and autos were off the roads for the most part. The burning of fossil fuels and the fumes that vehicles emit make it a lot hotter.

This summer was also a pleasant one for birds, which found a lot more freedom thanks to noisy people being indoors. They were always around but I started to notice them more in my building's common areas. The only unhappy birds seem to be the crows, who love feeding off garbage dumps. The very fact that the streets have fewer footfalls means there is less garbage on them,

There were days when I walked to the Andheri market and it felt just perfect. There was life, lots of vendors and a reasonable number of people, but it wasn't hot, dirty, smelly or crowded. Besides the metro line that bisects J.P. Road, the image of the market may been similar to that in the early 1970s.

I did miss having ice cream at Natural's in Juhu and having a sundowner at a bar overlooking the Arabian Sea and walks and jogs on the beach, but spending so much time at home helped me realise how much time I do waste outside, and how stressful the city's streets can be when life is normal.

Once life is normal, I'll make sure that local grocery stores deliver my monthly provisions and I do my vegetable and fruit runs at strategic times to avoid the horns, stress and people as much as possible.

The summer of Covid-19 has given way to the monsoon season of Covid-19. I am not sure how long this will go on, but there are indicators that school will only restart by August 15. I'll use this time indoors the best way I can by reading, learning, indoor and balcony gardening and meditating. Whenever I do get access to the great outdoors in the future, I'll appreciate all the more.

Dealing with uncouth and degenerate neighbours in Andheri

I am quite fortunate to live in a fairly nice locality in Andheri West. A metro station is just outside my gate, but far enough from my flat to not disturb the peace and quiet. The Bhavan's College campus is 300 metres away by foot and a lot closer as the crow flies. A building just in front of me was torn down in the last weeks of 2017 and nature has managed to take over with wild grass and a Gulmohur tree that is blessing the plot with orange-red flowers this summer.

How does the yin and yang factor play out with all this? With my neighbours of course! For years these people have resisted carrying out structural repairs on this 50-year old building, so cracks have begun to appear on everyone's bedroom and kitchen walls. There is also the issue of monsoon leaks, for which the degenerates have found a solution in tarpaulin sheets! Essentially the black sheets that hang over the top floor of the building look like garbage bags!

Not happy with the pure and clear air that the lockdown has managed to create in Bombay by default, the uncouth top-floor dwellers want hot tar to be applied to their outer walls. When they have garbage bags to protect themselves, why pollute the air and make the walls look ugly I wonder?

The answer to this lies in the fact that these people get some sort of trivial pressure when they get under someone else's skin. They have a problem with my window sill and balcony plants and also with the saplings I have planted in common areas. I told them they'd regret touching my plants and trees if they did make an attempt, so my minor contribution to the environment is safe for now.  These people of course have no problem for using the terrace and common areas for putting their junk!

I so realise that it's a drastic difference in mindset that puts me at odds with some of these degenerates, but guess what, I am not going anywhere! (They are a bunch of racists as well, and can't stand to see my foreign guests).

Out of 16 members in this housing society, there are a few good members. I so do value them.
The trouble makers want every member of this society to sell their flats, so that a builder can buy the land and give everyone a large sum of black money. My simple advice to these people is to sell and go. Maybe a more decent set of people will buy their flats?

After years of disagreements and hate-filled society meetings, it has been decided to do the necessary renovations for the building. Hopefully people will get really serious once the monsoons are over. I don't fancy painting and renovating my interiors only for everything to be spoiled later by structural repairs outside. 

This blog is back

It's been almost three years since I wrote anything here. I am not sure how regular I will be, but I am planning to give this blog another shot.

I like the relative anonymity of this space.

I am going to try and use it for book reviews, gardening tips, health and lifestyle suggestions and random musings.

Do comment if you're reading this, and say Hi! 

My new fan page on Facebook

Now that I am a published author, I need a fan page on Facebook.

Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/AjaySakhalin

Alexander Pushkin's 217th birth anniversary

I paid tribute to the great poet and playwright in this article

Here is a little excerpt from the article, where I quote three of Pushkin's poems.

“If this life deceives you sometimes,


Don't be sad or mad at it!


On a gloomy day, submit:


Trust - fair day will come, why grieve you? 


Heart lives in the future, so

What if gloom pervade the present?


All is fleeting, all will go;


What is gone will then be pleasant.”

Book Review: Once Upon A Hill by Kalpish Ratna

I live in Andheri, a much-maligned suburb of Bombay that makes me cringe at times. It's also a place that I have grown to love over time. A maddening concrete jungle, Andheri has some hidden patches of greenery like the tranquil campuses of Bhavan's college and the Hansraj Moraji school, both of which have been recently nailed shut to the members of the public.

These green patches are a bird sanctuary and since my building is close enough to the campuses, a lot of beautiful and exotic birds come to my balcony garden. A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to find out that a large and visible rock in my neighbourhood, Gilbert Hill was once a much larger hill that stretched all the way to S.V. Road.  The co-author of 'Once Upon A Hill' even pointed out that my building is actually on the hill.

This wonderful book traces the origins of Andheri and goes back a long way before the advent of human beings.  The authors went through a painstaking process of getting old maps from lazy bureaucrats and accessing old books from nasty librarians.

Our journey begins in Andheri East from a Christian village, where there were actually paddy fields till the mid-1970s! We read about local heroes and the earliest converts to Catholicism, as well as the communities that trace their origins to the sun.

Coming back to the western part of Andheri where I stay, I get a proper sense of the length of the hill that once included the part behind the Navrang Cinema, which has been taken over by slums. The writers explain how and when the quarrying was done. The Bhavan's campus is on flat land but now lies where a big part of the hill did.

The writers are rightfully very sympathetic to the poor who settled down by the hill and formed slum clusters.

I don't want to spoil the surprises in the book, so I'll leave that to the readers. But the book is a great guide to those who want to know more about the history of Andheri and Jogeshwari and places that seem to just be names like the Mahakali Caves.

As I stand on my terrace on this pre-monsoon Sunday evening, I remember a time in the 1990s when I could see hills towards my north. Now the metro station and the line is the first sight, followed by high-rises. In the 1990s, I could see Gilbert Hill when I turned towards the south from my terrace. Now I see a monstrous high-rise that came where a beautiful bungalow called Chaman stood.  Change is the only constant in life. As the book mentions, the building of the temple on top of the hill is likely to cause untold damage to the basalt columns, but then again, if there was no temple, the land mafia would be more than happy to tear down what's left of the hill!

Like with all books written by Kalpish Ratna, there are welcome lessons in history and science. I learnt a lot about the plague in 'Room 000' and 'The Quarantine Papers' and in this book I got an introduction of the science of geology.

'Once Upon a Hill' is a good read that's incredibly hard to put down, although I think it would have better off without the chapter on the 60 million year journey of a turtle and a frog, or if the chapter stayed with the wider script of the book.

Also, it would only be fair to note that this book is yet another tribute by Kalpish Ratna to Bombay's unsung heroes.