Or my take on it ... in any case :)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Jujubes and Churan
For all the city folks who have not heard of these terms, you have no idea what you've missed! At one point of time, these meant the world to me! To be fair ... they still mean a lot :)
Between ages 4-10 most holidays were spent in Karnal (a little town in the northern part of India, just off the GT Road). Going to Karnal usually meant getting spoilt silly by my Thakuma (paternal grandmother) and Jetha (paternal uncle). With an indulging uncle and grandma, Karnal seemed magical with its unlimited supply of jujubes, churan and ice cream. Like the 'Sugar Plum Tree'.
I am sure several whole-sellers would mistake Jetha to be the owner of one of those friendly family run candy stores because of the quantities he would buy. I cannot remember a single occasion when I have come to Karnal and not found at least one large box of assorted candies. In particular I remember these orange flavoured jujubes which were quite cleverly packed to look like an orange with elven slices. I forget the name of the company, but they made the most delicious Jujubes I have ever tasted. These would of course be rationed wisely by Jetha. Usually one pack would last me for a few days, though I remember one occasion where I was really greedy and had two packs in one day ... needless to say I had an upset stomach shortly.
My fondness for Churan was largely inherited from my Thaku. Almost every other day, Thaku would give me 2o paise to buy churan for the two of us. Churan is a khatta-meetha digestive with tamarind, anardana and sugar. I would go over to a shop by the corner of the street and get these delicious treats. 20 paise used to get us 10 pieces of churan. I was allowed to have one churan, on the way and I would relish it, enjoying the khatta-meetha taste of tamarind, anardana and sugar. Thaku would keep the remaining for safe keeping, and we'd have them together after lunch or later in the evening before dinner.
While I have had the opportunity to have jujubes and churan in several places since ... I have never quite enjoyed them as much as I did in Karnal.
Noida to Chandigarh ... A most memorable trip On one of those long weekends when we were staying in NOIDA, my sister and I decided that we would like to go visit our cousins in Chandigarh. We first tried convincing my father about it, but that was in vain. In any case, we pestered him enough for him to comment that why don't we just travel on our own. Aged 14 and 7 respectively at that point in time, nothing seemed impossible.
So guess what ... we took the challenge, and said that we'll travel by ourselves. My father had not anticipated this, so he mulled over it for a while ... and then said very well, you might as well give it a shot!! He explained the route I was to take, with the standard list of "things to do / not do".
In about an hour, both of us packed and were ready to leave. Ma packed us some goodies for the trip. Baba dropped us off to the nearest bus stand. In our excitement and enthusiasm, we overlooked the uncomfortable seats, the continuous rattling of the windows, the occassional where we took a bus to ISBT (Inter-State Bus Terminus). Both of us full of enthusiasm and really looked forward to the trip.
After about nearly 2 hours of travel in the bus, we finally reached ISBT. The ISBT is a fairly large structure, sprawled across almost an acre or more of land. The whole place is abuzz with activity: almost like an ant hill ... No matter which direction you look at, the whole place is just teeming with people. The sheer multitude of people was quite overwhelming. Troops of people flow in and out of this place. There is no apparent order to this, and yet everything flows smoothly.
It shook the confidence I had a few hours ago .... was I sure I could do this? ... forget reaching Chandigarh ... we could get lost right here!! Thankfully, I decided not to pursue that line of thought for too long! So I picked up our bags in one hand, and grabbed my sisters hand with the other. I tried to recall the instructions that my father had given, and followed them to the dot.
On the way, we saw Parents juggling between yelling at their children to stay close, and their luggage, hawkers of various ages marketing their wares, ranging from orange/lemon drops, peanuts, chips, freshly cut fruit, magic hair oil, to books that promise to solve all your life's problems, and others too :) , random murder mysteries no one has ever heard of, toys, puzzles, ball-point pens, etc. etc. All of them have a unique pitch and volume to their sales pitch ... almost as though all of them trained in the same school for it !!
You can hear snatches of conversations (which are loud enough to be heard over the din) in a variety of Indian languages. We waded through the sea of people to reach a square booth, that had some sort of a grilled fence over the top, almost like there was some wild animal caged in there. A loosely attached tin board identified it as the ticketing booth. And by the sound emanating from the booth, it appeared that there was some animal caged there!!
The booth was occupied by four people, one for each side of the square. The gentleman (if one may allude that term to him) had a large rectangular head, with a crew-cut hair cut, large teeth which apparently unhappy inside seem to happier out of his mouth. His vocabulary seemed particularly limited, as was his comprehension. Of course that might be easily explained by the general din, but I am not entirely sure of that. In any case after a few attempts he finally grasped what the bespectacled young boy across the counter was trying to convey. He yelled out a number, indicating that was the expected payment. Upon receipt of the amount, he started pulling out different coloured pieces of paper, and punching holes in them. For a moment I thought he might be having some sort of a seizure! But apparently there was some logic behind the madness. In any case some 10 different coloured pieces of paper were thrust into my hand, and the folks behind ensured I was no longer between them and the ticket counter.
We promptly set off in search for our bus, which was thankfully pretty close by. We managed to find seats right in the middle (explicit instructions to be seated in the centre to minimise the jolts and jerks in the journey: courtesy my dear father. He thinks of everything!). Now with us seated, I did one quick check to confirm that I still had all that I had left home with: food (check), Putul (check), wallet (check), phone numbers & address (source / destination) (check) .. so that is indeed a good beginning.
The bus filled up pretty quickly. A tall sardarji, with a flowing white beard was to be the driver. He had a fair number of teeth missing, and his speech was not particularly coherent. But the bus conductor who had obviously been travelling with him for sometime, could perfectly understand all that was mumbled! Our journey finally began, and slowly but surely, we seemed to be getting away from the noise, grime and congestion of Delhi.
In the meanwhile my sister was taking in the sights and sounds of everything passing by ... animate or otherwise ... and asking several questions. I tried to answer as many as I could honestly, but was soon coming up some very creative answers!! (just to keep myself occupied :) ). As we moved out of the city, and the activity outside died down. She shifted her interest to the passengers. Now if you knew her at that age, you knew this was dangerous. There could be very embarrassing questions asked with the usual bluntness and honesty of a 7yr old. And sure enough ... why did the sardarji have a long beard, why does that person have a pock marked face, are all these people going to Chandigarh, do they know Kaku? how fast is the bus going? when will we reach ? ... The questions were endless ... and unfortunately my patience was not.
The gentleman sitting next to me struck up a conversation, and I learnt that he is going to Karnal to meet some of his relatives. He was teaching music to children in a school in Delhi. Soon Putul was directing all her questions to this gentleman (it could be because I wasn't particularly responsive), who very patiently answered all her questions.
The journey seemed to flyby, and soon the bus had stopped at a dhaba (roadside inn) for a lunch break. We had a hearty meal of paranthas (a delicious stuffed Indian bread) and dahi (natural yogurt) and then set off on our journey again.
Our co-passenger got off at Karnal, and we continued on our journey. All the talking had thankfully tired Putul, so she was now napping comfortably. Just short of Chandigarh, the bus seemed to make some grating sounds, and then lurched to a halt. No amount of mumblings and encouragement from the driver would get the vehicle to start. Finally all the passengers were requested to get off the bus, and board the next one that came by. The sun was setting and it was getting dark ... we were in the middle on green fields on both sides, and nothing else in sight. I was a little concerned. But since there were so many people with us, I was sure it wouldn't be a problem. We waited for about 30 minutes before another bus came by, thankfully they had the space to accommodate all of us, and we continued our journey.
We reached Chandigarh fairly quickly after that, and our dear Kaku was at the bus stand to receive us. It was a great trip for both of us!
