Pooris, as Promised

JULY 15, 2016 – 1900 hours onwards, somewhere in Raleigh, North Carolina

Sugandha and I met at a bus stop in Raleigh. Information had been exchanged about banks at the time. It has been a year and a half since then. Today I have come to her house which she shares with Mahita and Abhilasha to see her cook, to document it, and to make some of that experience traceable through the words to appear here.

Dressed in a red-T and black tracks, Sugandha has her light curls clipped to one side. (Mahita and I agree: she is but missing the frill-y white fairy-dress and the customary wand in one hand – a common scene in birthday parties of little children. I saw them when I was small.) We begin calling her “pariyon ki raani” (in Hindi) or the queen of fairies. Sugandha seems very pleased with the nomenclature. The shadow I saw clouding her face when referring to the massacre in Nice, France, on Bastille Day, a few minutes earlier, has cleared, I am happy to note. We meander off to several topics. I am engaged in the latter, but more importantly, I wait.

In between admitting to her “frustration” with Excel, and some things called “acceleration, velocity, and low frequency of earthquakes,” all of which I have next to no knowledge of (delightedly), I am glad to hear Sugandha giggle and say: “They’ll be shocked to hear that I’ll be cooking!” “They,” meaning her parents. So what will she be cooking today, I ask.

“Poori and alu ki sabji.” (Small, unleavened, fried Indian bread and potato curry)

“Why those?”

“I had promised you a long time back I would.”

I have no recollection of such a promise. I inquire. Sugandha says that I had mentioned to her that there was a bag full of aata (wheat) at my place and I did not know what to do with it; it was in that context that she had said she will make pooris from it. All right then. (I am quietly content that such a mundane exchange has been remembered.)

Mahita decides to add to the dishes for the night: raita. Spinach raita. “I am big on raitas,” I am told. I probably douse her excitement a bit when I tell her that I am not. (I can do that, although, not always intentionally.) But I do not mind trying the raita. Surely not.

Through the rest of the evening, Mahita will be warned twice to allow the turmeric powder to cook before she takes it off the pan to add to the raita, to not be impatient with it. Mahita suggests that she keeps it on high flame for some time. Sugandha says no. That’s that. The warning has been heeded; the turmeric powder is saved from suffering severe burns. (The salt takes its place. Sugandha is guilty of that excess.)

Mahita receives another caution later: Not to use wet hands on the kneaded dough. Sure.

Amidst such conversations, and my taking photos of the various stages of the sumptuous fill that awaits all of us, and laughter, and my taking lessons from Mahita on how WordPress works, and her filling up her tax forms and her vexation over the questions in it and her not having access to the information that is needed, there is, not to forget, the music – songs from Bollywood hits like “Main Hoon Na,” “Bunty aur Babli,” and “Dabangg.” While matching the expressions of the singers in the songs, Sugandha sings on flagrantly. The “Munni re” stands out most to my ears; Sugandha could have replaced the villain in that one scene calling out to Munni effortlessly with her ardent emphasis on the word “re.” (You have my word.) While cutting the vegetables, or even kneading the dough, the tempo of the songs is closely matched. The hands are tied, but the legs fold and unfold to the beats of some popular numbers. There are some uninterrupted moments of only-dancing of course.

I am attending to a lot, as one can well see. But in between all this pleasant noise, my eyes have travelled to the luminescent red of the chopped tomatoes, and the lush green of the diced chillies. As to why they appeal to me so much, is hard for me to explain. The love for these is shortlived of course, since I do not mind the sacrifice that they will be subjected to soon. The potato curry cannot do without them. I choose to live with the decision to not give in to the dictates of my heart. What does it earn one any way? In the way of the stomach, one at least gets some food.

I find a repeat of these colors in the plates on which the food is going to be served in the end. One of the four plates also has a patterned edge; the plate itself is like a big, red, flower like in unsullied children’s drawings where a red pastel crayon has been rubbed deeply against the paper, sometimes spilling outside the boundaries of the flower. There is also the red against white of the nylon chequered table cloth.

Pooris
Once the sifted wheat is kneaded to a dough with the help of water and a little bit of oil, and made into round balls, place one ball at a time on a flat chapatti block, roll the dough into a small, flat, circular shape with the rolling pin, and then fry one at a time in a ladle filled with vegetable oil. Flip them twice or thrice till each fluffs up and keep transferring to a bowl. Exercise patience, and ensure being excited like a child when the pooris fluff up – these are compulsory.

Alu sabji
Chop onions, tomatoes, green chillies, garlic cloves and ginger; cut potatoes into not-too-small square pieces. Put ghee (clarified butter) in a cooker; add cumin seeds and allow it to fry. Add ginger, garlic and chillies to it, and wait till they are a bit mellow and shy in the heat of the oil. Then add onions; await till they are a light brown. Add tomatoes and spices like: turmeric, coriander, red chilli, garam masala, and Kitchen King masala. Wait till the spices are mixed well; ensure that the turmeric does not overpower the other spices. (Remember Sugandha’s forewarning to Mahita?)

Put the potatoes to the above, and add salt. Mix everything well. Allow it some time to cook, and then add water and fenugreek leaves (or kasuri methi). Wait till everything comes to a light boil and then put the lid on the cooker. Three whistles on, and you have been chosen by the queen of fairies to partake of the potato curry. Amen to that.

Spinach Raita
First, blend raw spinach in a blender with a bit of water and salt. Then, in a plastic container, take yogurt, a bit of salt, spices like red chilli and cumin powder, and whip it all into a cream-like whirl. Add the blended spinach. Ensure that the mixture is neither too gooey nor too liquid-y.

On a small pan, put vegetable oil, cumin seeds, and a polite number (two at the most) of dried red chillies, each broken into halves, and then add turmeric powder. Sautee lightly.

Add the sautéed mixture to the cream-like whirl of yogurt et al.

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Suddenly, I am asked: “Do you know how I learnt to make poori?”

I encourage a response. So, it was in Mumbai (in India), where she worked as a project engineer in a construction company for a couple of years. One day she felt like eating something “fancy;” added to that was boredom. She decided to give it a shot.

And here she was, keeping a promise, more than 8208 miles away from Mumbai, to a person who did not remember the promise. It was a meager promise, and I have known people who don’t keep them. Some are too afraid to make them even. Through the sometimes smoke-covered camera lens and in between sips of tea in my polka-dotted blue cup, I realize that I have been proven wrong.

Like the minuscule bubbles emitted around the tiny portion of the dough that has been put into the yellowish oil to test its temperature, the sizzles rushing to the surface as if to catch a breath, I feel I have swum to the surface holding on to something that I had lost: the meaning of a promise.

Well-made, well-kept – the pooris; I mean, the promise.