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| Fasting, feasting |
| Anoothi Vishal / New Delhi Sep 12, 2009, 00:24 IST |
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The attention that we give to food during days of fasting never ceases to amaze me.
I have been reading about the elaborate Ramadan tents serving iftar food in Dubai and about sehri and iftar deals in Lahore and Karachi, where five-star hotels are going all out to push high-end buffets with individuals and corporate clients alike, and, in at least one case, even showcasing a “Ramadan snob special”!
Apart from whatever traditional delicacies these may be serving up, Chinese spring rolls, wontons and prawn toasts as well as sandwiches and samosas seem to be equally popular on fast-breaking menus, or so I gather. Post-dusk eating out and shopping are indeed the biggest entertainment in the Muslim world this time of the year, and the world, regardless of politics, has shrunk — at least for us foodies if not for gourmets.
In India, of course, unlike, say the Navratras, eating out during Ramadan is not such a commercial activity yet — though a handful of hotels in cities such as Hyderabad have started pushing iftar menus with special spreads comprising nihari, haleem, dum ki biryani and other traditional eats that we could have once sampled in the old bazaars of Lucknow, Delhi and Hyderabad, and the Bohri mohallas of Mumbai. If you are ready to brave some hustle and bustle, indeed, you still can: Forget KFC, as street foodphiles advise us, in Old Delhi and Nizamuddin, sample some indigenous crispy chicken instead! Then, there are those tempting rounds of fried, sweet vermicelli displayed in mounds, garnished with an overload of nuts —though, I believe, poorer folk these days have taken to buying packets of macaroni (Rs 10 a packet) from kirana stores and making their own iftar pasta “tempered” with cut onions and tomatoes!
What follows Ramadan in our multicultural land is another period of fasting: the Navratras. And however much you may crib about the non-availabilty of eggs from the local grocer’s this time of the year or the religious tyranny of no meat-no alcohol diets, this is once again a time when we see the same strange mix of joyous celebration with ritual abstentation.
Nothing can dampen this annual autumnal excitement when smoke from the havans carrying whiffs of ghee-soaked halwa made for prasad mingles with the joyousness of a dandiya celebration, as much a part of our cultural lives now as an Old Delhi Ram Lila, or the chaos of Puja pandals sponsored by an MNC. No onion-no garlic-no grain kutu ki puri and kheer meet egg roll and mochar chops meet street eats from purani Dilli and Gujarat... In melting pot India, religion, of course, induces ecstacy.
We make so much of feasts, but traditional foods for fasting can be equally, if not more, sublime. Most of phalahar, typically non-cereal diet consumed during a Hindu fast, is hardly a boring all-fruit menu as its name may suggest. Instead, creative solutions have been found to cleanse our systems and appease the gods at the same time. If you can’t have wheat (or rice) flour, you can always fashion your pooris with flour made from lotus. And if you can’t have regular kheer, you can always substitute the rice with a variety of other goodies in the pudding. One of my favourite desserts, in fact, is makhane ki kheer, much lighter than the usual kheer or phirni, made by boiling lotus seeds, bits of coconut, raisins and chironji in milk. Unfortunately, you are entitled to it only if you fast.
Finally, prasad. You may have noticed how what is offered to the good god always tastes so much more exquisite than what is ordinarily cooked for us humans. Think of some rich and fragrant panjiri, garnished with just a saintly sprig or two of basil, or moti choor ke laddo and delicately steamed modaks filled with fresh coconut, or indeed the unparalleled paag offered to Krishna on his birthday in the form of thals set with crystalised-in-sugar giri (dry coconut), nuts or dried sweet gum. There is the elaborate chhappan bhog, of course, with 56 items. But the simplest offering can be the sweetest: Try panchamrita, comprising of five “amrits” —milk, curd, honey, raisins and nuts, and gangajal. Divine.
(anoothi.vishal@bsmail.in)
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