No retreat from monsoon treats

Rahul Verma

Forwarding WhatsApp posts is not my favourite pastime, but there was one post that caught my attention some days ago. The picture on the post was that of pakoras, and they all seemed to be smiling broadly. When it rains, the caption said, potatoes and onions coat themselves with besan, and then willingly jump into a kadahi full of hot oil.

Well, willing or not, it’s a fact that the rain translates into little hillocks of pakoras in thousands of Indian homes. Onions and potatoes are chopped, chillies are slit. These are coated with batter prepared with besan, or sometimes rice powder. Oil is heated, and when it starts to smoke, the batter-covered ingredients are dropped into the oil, and taken out swiftly with a slotted spoon. Hot tea, with or without ginger in it, is already by your side. You bite into a crisp aloo pakora, and have a sip of the tea. If this is not nirvana, what is?

Rainy days have a special connection with some kinds of food. In my part-Bengali house, the first rain usually means khichdi. In Bengal, a monsoon shower is welcomed with hot khichdi or khichuri, as it is called there, served with a host of accompanying fritters of potatoes, pointed gourds (parwal) and brinjal and several pieces of deep-fried fish. The khichdi in the North has modest accompaniments ‘khichdi kay chaar yaar: ghee, papad, dahi, achaar’ is a saying that I grew up on. So, when the sky darkens, I start thinking of ghee-flavoured khichdi, with pickle and papad on the side. And while I enjoy a plate of hot bedmi and potato sabzi throughout the year, it wields a special magic in this season. The bedmi puffs up in hot oil, and tastes like heaven with a spicy fenugreek chutney on the side.

What is it about the rain that makes us so ecstatic? Well, in most parts of India, the monsoon comes after months of sweltering heat. The rain eases the heat and lifts the mood. That’s one reason, Chef Ashwani Kumar Singh says, why people yearn for something spicy and hot.

Fried foods have a role to play in this season. After weeks of light food in the summer months, most people feel they’ve had enough of ghiya and tori, and want something more palatable. Some of my friends welcome the rain with keema cooked with green chillies. There was a time, after all, when people picnicked in the rain, carrying bundles of paranthas and pots full of keema with them to places such as Mehrauli, then seen as remote.

Days of incessant rain once also meant the emergence of creepy-crawlies, so there was a greater focus on eating fried food, which doesn’t spoil easily, and keep infection at bay.

There is another reason why food cooked with besan and other dried dal forms is seen as monsoon staple. Chef Ashwani, who has a food show on YouTube, points out that heavy showers once meant restricted movement. The vegetable seller couldn’t go for his rounds, and the homemaker couldn’t step out either. So, besan played a varied role as pakora coatings and besan rotis while dals were used for cheela and dried dal balls (vadis) went into curries.

But the dish that captures my heart in this weather is ghewar. This is a sweet dish that is popular in most parts of the north, but especially in Rajasthan. Prepared with maida, sugar and ghee, it has a honeycomb-like design. It looks good, and tastes good, too! There are other seasonal specials too. As milk and chhena may go bad in this weather, sweets are often prepared with flour or suji. Malpua is a case in point: the basic version only calls for maida, some suji, sugar and fennel seeds. And how can one forget the simple gulguley small fried atta balls mixed with jaggery and fennel? Another monsoon favourite is called anarse ki goli. These are sweetened balls made with powdered rice and coated with sesame sweets. I have fond memories of this sweet, which was something my aunt used to prepare every monsoon when I was small.

The end of the summer also meant festivity, and therefore weddings. Chef Ashwani tells me that anarse ki goli was one of dishes that brides traditionally carried with them. And a good goli was the one that would spring back to its original round shape when squeezed in one’s palm and released.

The rain uncorks nostalgia. So many old Hindi songs pop into my mind when the clouds gather. I think of Raj Kapoor and Nargis under an umbrella, and Madhubala wringing her wet curls. The music wafts in as I open the window and let a bit of the rain in. And then I wait for the potatoes and onions to jump into the kadahi of hot oil.