The Daal-ings of Indian Meals.

               What we called ‘varann’ was what our hotel guest Anna relished as ‘savoury porridge’; she had it every morning at breakfast. Strange things foreigners do. On restaurant menus, I read ‘khatkhate’ described as lentil stew. I shouldn’t be surprised, because that’s how ‘sambar’ is described, too.

               Since our Goan pronunciation is ‘daall’ with a hard ‘d’ like in dvd and pressing a twisted tongue on the palate at the last two letters, ‘ll’, I had to relearn how to say it when I went to live in north India where both letters are soft.

               The idiom ‘daal mein kuch kala hain’ is not as valid these days when we get de-stoned pulses packed in polythene bags. I remember how much I hated picking at those dried and split cotyledons to take out little stones which, if ever one escaped my eye and finger, went through the process of pressure-cooking along with the ‘daall’ and routed itself into Shri Husband’s mouth. The ‘kaala’ in the ‘daall’ always avoided me.  It was a conspiracy, I swear, for it happened multiple times without my playing any active role in the drama. Raving and ranting against Providence and the elements of Nature didn’t help: Shri Husband didn’t believe me. His dentist, too, looked accusingly at me.

               But there’s more to the ‘daalls’ in my life.

               Once, a colleague in Delhi said: ‘nek kar, kuem mein daal’. I understood the first part: do good. But the second part of the sentence it took me some time to figure out. If one did a good deed, why would there be ‘daall’ in the well (‘kuam’)? I understood after I encountered ‘iss bag mein yeh daal, uss bag mein voh daal’.

 It took me even longer to understand that patriotic song: ‘Jahan daal-daal per sone ki chidiya karti hai basera’. Such are the perils of living in a multi-lingual country.

               The teachers who taught me in school, may their kind and hardworking souls rest in peace after struggling for a lifetime trying to put a sense and rule of grammar into heads like mine, were mainly ‘cattlicks’ from Goa or Anglo-Indians. They converted ‘daall’ to ‘doll’ or ‘dawhl’ if they were of the left-behind-by-the-Raj variety. Had me in a spot once, in Belgaum, at a friend’s ancient aunt’s place. This grey-haired, floral-printed-dress wearing prim and proper remnant of another century asked me which ‘doll’ I liked. I was in my late teens and not flattered that she took me to be a juvenile.  I shook my head vigorously to indicate nyet, nil, none. She then said: “Awright, we’re having meat for lunch, then.” I was confused until the flickering tube-light finally lit in my head. Pronunciations/accents, what communication goof-ups they can cause.

               ‘Moong’ and ‘masoor’ we ate (still do) whole, sprouted and cooked into ‘usals’ and ‘shaaks’. The former, in ‘daall’ form was (still is) mixed with rice to make a mushy ‘khichdi’ that was meant to give solace to the ill and ailing. I’ve no idea why ‘chavlee’ isn’t skinned and split. The wisdom of that decision has died with our ancestors. Who are we to or how dare we even question tradition?

For some reason, south Indians who consume copious amounts of the split ‘urad’, don’t touch its black whole form which is popular in the north. This sub-continent’s food habits can give a cookery-historian work for a lifetime.

               Talking of the black ‘urad’, …cooked through a winter’s day over firewood/coal to a sticky oneness by nightfall, seasoned well and eaten with a blob of butter with ‘rotis’ fresh off the ‘choola’ whilst temperatures hovered around 0 deg C and the mist thickened into fog… bring back memories of extreme discomfort. Really feel sorry for our jawans at the border; their ‘rotis’ are stale and stiff, cooked weeks before. Each bite they take, at Siachen heights, freezes before their hand reaches from bowl to mouth. And they live there so we can live here in peace.

               I digress.

               Now that the ‘daall’ is making headlines in the news because of its price, Rs 220 per kilogram as I type this, Bai Goanna wanted to know which ‘daall’.

‘Channa’ must be, she said, adding, “gives gas. We must eat more of it.”

               Shri Husband butted in: “What’s the logic?”

               Bai Goanna explained: “We must eat more ‘channa’ because India needs more gas. All this subsidy business, no, for gas-cylinders that we have to give up… if there’s some way we can ‘harvest’ (her word, not mine) gas from human beings, it will be good for the country, no?”

               I saw Shri Husband’s palm go straight to his forehead, and so I hastily changed the topic. I don’t know why Bai Goanna has to come up with warped logic at odd moments. Any moment, actually.  

               I said, “I bought some ‘daall’ last month. Used it sparingly, too.”

               “Lock it up,” Bai Goanna advised. “Keep it for Diwali or some special occasion.”

               Wise words can come from unexpected sources, even Bai Goanna, no? ‘Daall’-rice has now been officially declared a VIP dish. In case the governor drops in… dreaming isn’t a crime in this country… I must have a handful of ‘toor/arhar’ in the house. After all, yellow ‘daall’ with ‘tadka’ is considered the darling of Indian cuisine. Not tandoori chicken, not any longer.

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