In the meantime, I am packing up and moving to a new location http://khichdiblog.blogspot.com!

Some chutiya* has blocked khichdi.blogspot since eons ago and made only 1 post on there. But KhichdiBlog isn’t so bad.

Definations:

Chutiya: “Of the cunt”. A common degrotary term in Gujarati (and Hindi) used for males. 

Each neighbourhood would have a family or group who are in charge of cleaning the streets and taking away the garbage from each home to the big municipal dumpster. They can also be contracted to clean the gutters or sewers and deal with blockages, dead animals, etc.

Each night they would go from house to house collecting the left overs; they time it so that its after when most people would have dinner. That way they get all the left overs. This is called varu. And when they get back home with all the food they have collected, the whole family gets together and feasts on this. Proably the best, and only, meal of the day.

In our home, typically anything more than a couple of days old, or that which no one is interested in eating, will go to them. We would of course not give them food that is left over in the plate.

The nicer stuff that we don’t intend to eat is usually taken away in the late afternoon or early evening by the domestic help. The stuff given during varu is what the domestic help didn’t want.

Plate scraps would go outside the house where stray dogs, cats and goats got get to them, mainly dogs. These dogs, though stray are pretty much domesticated. In return for the food, they would guard the neighbourhood, barking at strangers and chasing off other dogs and sick animals.

Bio-scraps, things like banana peels, corn husks, stems and other uneditable parts of vegtables would go into to a separate spot outside the home for cows. This might sometimes be mixed with water or other liquid waste like buttermilk, soups, etc.

So you see, almost no food is wasted. All edible food is appropriately shared out between man and beast.

Just like with the water post, I am sometimes struck with how much food we tend to waste living in the United States. Not only when we go out to eat, but in the home as well. Half eaten fruits or those that go bad just sitting there, packs of snacks, cooked food, doggie bags. In restaurants too, like in fast food places, where they simply throw away an order that was slightly messed up, or those fries that the patron thinks are not fresh enough.

Definations :

Varu : when poorer people who provide a service to a neighbourhood, go door to door at night collecting left-overs. I believe that the literal meaning is “turn” as in “its your turn to play”; meaning that its your (the household’s) turn to give away their leftovers.

The guys would get together at around 9pm, with our bootlegged hooch and “biting” at a friend’s apartment. A couple of hours and a bottle of rum later, we would head out to one or the other of our favourite garba* venue to oggle chicks.

No one ever scored. I don’t know if it was just that we were all pussies or wether this was the general trend. Later, when we had girlfriends, we didn’t have the daru*, so it wasn’t much fun anyway. Besides, you ended up driving the chick all over the place and paying for her drink and food but never got any action in return. At least that’s what happened to me. What a bummer.

Definations :

Navratri : A Hindu festival dedicated to the Godesses Durga, Laxmi and Saraswati.

Garba : A form of dance generally performed during Navratri.

Daru : Liquor, usually hard alcoholic drinks.

Technorati Tags: Navratri, Garba, Daru, alcohol

And I wish my South Indian collegue here in the office would stop singing! Damn andu-gundu*!

Definations:

andu-gundu: derogrotory term used to refer to someone from southern India, used mainly in the US.

In a typical large town, if the rains have been good and there is plenty of water, you will get water twice a day for about 20-30 minutes each. Most homes will have a ground-level or underground water tank into which the water will flow. This is because the water pressure is never great enough that it will automatically climb to the roof-top tank (typically 1 or 2 storeys high). And sometimes the pressure is so low that it will not climb the couple of feet to the ground-level tank in which case one ends up letting the water flow into buckets which are then lifted and emptied into the ground-level tank. That is where the underground tanks really make a difference, since not only will water flow into those at even the lowest pressure, but will continue to flow well after the supply has officially stopped.

A water motor will then pump the water from the lower tank to the rooftop tank, so that it can flow through the house’s plumbing system. You are proably wondering why the motor doesn’t simply pump the incoming water straight up to the rooftop tank. It is not allowed by law, illegal. But some people do it anyway, but run the risk of getting into a fight with their neighbours. You see, if one home attaches a water pump, they tend to suck up more than their fair share. And that means a cat fight between the ladies, when the men folk joining in later.

It is usually the women of the house who are responsible for this whole water collection and storage operation. In fact, the whole day is planned around the water-time*, women making sure they are home from work, shopping or whatever at that time.

Its quite a community event. All the women are outside, chatting as they tend to their water buckets or check the water flow. Of course now better techonology is used with automatic motors and water level sensors and what have you. Otherwise, the way to tell that your roof-top tank is full, was to check manually; or when you heard the overflow running down the roof drains!

Definations:

Water time: The designated times when the municipal authorities will release water to a neighbour. It would vary across neighbourhoods, since a municipal employee would physically go around on a bicycle opening and shutting the water mains valves. If water supplies are low, the water time might be reduced to once a day, once in two days or even a couple of times a week.

Inspite of the prohibition, there is plenty of alcohol to be had. Just go to any police station; yes that is what we call the Liquor Store in Gujarat.

So a close friend of the family would sometimes bring his bottle of contraband to our home to drink. I didn’t drink at the time, silly rabbit.

For biting* he would ask for papad*. For mood* he’ld ask me to throw in an Anup Jalota ghazal tape (yes damnit, tape!). And he would proceed to get drunk, sometimes belligerent, sometimes philosophical.

Lets call this friend “N”. I might be posting more about him later.

Definations:

Biting: This is what the salty or spicy snack that you have with your drink is called.

Papad: A crisy Indian snack, usually spicy. Roasted over an open flame or deep fried.

Mood: To create atmosphere for the drinking session.

I chose the word khichdi since it is very strongly associated with Gujarat and Gujaratis.

Gujarat is one of the states of India, located on the western coast, above Maharashtra, The captail is Ghandinagar while some of the major cities are Amdavad (Ahmedabad), Vadodara (Baroda), Surat and Rajkot (WTF, how come we haven’t renamed these cities!). But I am not here to teach you geography so go look some place else for more information.

Also, my command of the Gujarati language is by no means great; in fact, I might barely be able to understand the language if the ‘pure’ version is used. But I know the gutter version, the one that the common man would use. And I will try to bring some of that to this blog; mainly the fouler cuss words.

So buckle up and enjoy the ride!

Technorati Tags: khichdi, Gujarat, Gujarati