Turnaround and forward march.. HALT! We left some gaping holes in our story, enough to swallow some elephants. So we come to this edition of "In search of Gult origins - Step Point Five".
As you already know Jabalpur taught me to walk and later I started ranting. My parents were thrilled on those two occasions. But what is frustrating is that for the next 12-13 years all they asked me to do is shut-up and sit-down. Even the teachers. When a teacher calls you by your entire name, it means trouble. I have had first hand experience of this and not just once.
Well Gultness ain't just about speaking Gulti, is it? I need to explore more of those thin strands that kept me connected to the Great Gult Land (GGL). It involves many more things. Eating the bitter
Ugadi pachchadi (bitter is the taste that is left behind in your mouth - always!) comes foremost to my mind. While on one hand people around me reveled with ladoos, jalebis, halwa, we the gult folks always had to start our new year, you know, with this bitter concoction. Who in the right of his mind (or even the left) would want to start a new year this way? It escapes me! The story doesn't end here. Now this concoction, you would know if you have read the recipe, is made up of flowers of neem (margosa) among other things. The esteemed Gult year starts somewhere in the season of spring. While the time of the year is just right to harvest these neem flowers in GGL, up in the chilly north, it was a tad too early for the flowers to see the sunshine. So what did the zealots in the adults group do ? - made us kids eat that pachchadi with neem leaves instead of the blossoms! eewww!
My dad is a good man. He always gives us more than we ask for. My dad wanted me to have all the educational opportunities he never had, so he sent me to a girls school. Take your time to laugh on! Though usually a girl's school, the branch in our town was a co-ed. So happy now? He always wanted us kids to have everything that he couldn't have. And these few lines are in his honor.
I come from a conservative family - who believe in God and his forgiveness and they taught their children well. And, as a good boy, I learnt it all. When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. Well, yes, I exaggerate a bit - but you get the feel!
Every summer or every other summer would be our 2-day long journey to Vijaywada/Hyderabad. Taking a rickety bus from this small sleepy town to Delhi, I would ensure that my motion sickness would paint the bus with liberal doses. Delhi always mesmerized me. Kahte hain Dilli wale bade dil wale hote hain. Connaught Place, Dhaulakuan, Palam, ISBT are few of the places which I still remember with vivid clarity. So what would most of our meals contain during that journey? - yeah you guessed it right! Pulihora (puliogre or tamarind rice as many of you might be familiar with) and curd rice. This is not true of us alone - all our gult co-passengers would open up their boxes to the same cuisine. While the non-gults ( a.k.a northies - mostly marwaris ) would brazenly open up their poories, sabzi, mathari, ladoo, samosas and what not. You would find hard to believe that they would get down the train with only half of their initial luggage - having devoured the other half!
Now the Gults do have a way of getting heard.. When you suddenly hear the words.. “Don’t taak to me like this. I yam egg-nest yuver girral seeing my boy. I will set yuver house on firre if she comes here again.” – you know who would say it. If you are having comprehension problems, here is the easy version: “Don’t talk to me like this. I am against your girl seeing my boy. I will your house on fire if she comes here again.” Wouldn’t you turn your heads if you heard that?
Festivals meant a burden. While The Delhites know that Dusshera is because the dude Ram got the freak Ravana, the more coy Hyderabadis still think that around this time the lady with the trident saw off Mahishasura. They call it Dasara. Delhites continue their revelry unabated until the next new moon.. finally when the dude returned to Ayodhya with his family. Down in the south, we have a different story for this also. This time the other blue cousin of Ram - Lord krishna seems to have vanquished Narakasura. It's not that we Gults of GGL do not believe in Lord Ram, but we beg to differ a bit with the northis when it comes to history. Now you ask what is the burden? History, my dear reader! While I had to remember these two versions of the festivals, you might have done exceedingly well with only one of them. Different though the reasons may be, fortunately the festivals still remain around the same days!
The burden just did not end there. You think this blog is all about Gult bashing? Naah... wait till you get the other angle. When it came to speaking skills we always had an extra language that we knew compared to the purists from North or from south. Helps you pass on secrets to a fellow Gult in presence of gult-illiterate folks. While our textbooks taught us about Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Premchand, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, we also knew about
Kavitrayam. Our text books taught us about Gandhi, Nehru, Bose and others. My parents also told me about Alluri Sita Rama Raju and the
Potti guy - take that! The regular trips to south did give us the long train journeys that I just loved as a kid. Hopping from bogie to bogie, to the pantry and back - and this was a regular fare for close to 20 years in my life!
Having proved that we did have a bit of a start when it comes to history and linguistic skills, culinary skills were not to be left behind. Having grown up in the north, the heavy duty chana, butter and paneer dishes obviously made a place for themselves. Belch! But the Gult pickles are not to be forgotton. You wouldn't believe the number of neighbours who queued up outside our home to learn these skills. Had my Mom given heed to my frantic efforts to commercialize this oppurtunity, I would be in a better state of life today - spending the millions that it would have amassed. Sigh! Moms never listen, I say!
My mom is the usual mom - doting on her kids, hiding our mischiefs from our dad, churning out the most amazing dishes, making sure we did our homeworks in time and taking pains to see that we were dressed appropriately at all the times. But we did behave like the devils that we were - always! Over dressed for sleep and under-dressed for the chilly winter days. Soiled and messed up just in time to receive guests. Kudos mom for all your efforts. But sadly we turned out differently. We understand why you hush up when gossip-mongering aunties tell stories about us – blatant lies, I tell you. Err… well some of the stories at least... no amma?
Labels: childhood, festivals, food, gult, gulti, history