The aroma of Sambhar, String bean thoran, Fish thoran on rice jolted me out of my daze. Was I dreaming? The plateful of earthy, non-ostentatious assortment that lay before me was lunch, lovingly prepared by Mum. I was going to get a taste of something I had yearned for more than 4 years - simple, home made, Mum-made fare. The fact that I had to travel more than 7500 miles to Philadelphia to enjoy this does not seem important anymore.
3 months ago, this seemed improbable. I was in Mumbai, eating out regularly. The same set of restaurants for lunch and dinner - a different permutation each week. A large workload had all but killed the time to explore some of Mumbai's gastronomic delights. The occasional get-together at a friend's place or a party at another part of town, broke the monotony. Then came the news of my Visa - it had been approved. I could go home.
Home, for many years, was Kolkata - that old city on the banks of the Hooghly in West Bengal. The city where I was baptised in all its gastronomic glory. It was a melting pot of cuisines - Bengali, Mughlai, Chinese, Marwari, Continental - from fine dining to heterogeneous street fare. Then my folks moved to the U.S. My new home. Without a visa, my new home was inaccessible. Mum-made became a distant possibility. Not any more.
I arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about a month ago and since then its been one big feast - one that's mostly comprised of my favourite dishes and preparations which only Mum could do justice to. Simplicity never tasted so good. She never had to exert too much effort to transform seemingly everyday ordinary fare to explosions of taste. A few masterful touches, a sprinkle there and a dash here and voila, t
he next taste bomb. Her armou
ry includes 
Sambhar ( a South Indian vegetable stew), Kaachiya Mor (spicy buttermilk curry), Meen Curry (a fish curry that has its origins in Central Kerala), assorted thorans (traditional Kerala stir-fry with assorted vegetables) Meen Kootaan ( a fish dish with lots of grated coconut), ultra delicious Chilly Chicken and Fried Rice and a whole lot more. Each one can set off a chain reaction of the senses led by the taste buds !! No restaurant anywhere can match this. I mean it.
The other drastic but oh-so-good change now is that I'm eating breakfast. Skipping breakfast was the norm in Mumbai. Or at the most I'd grab a 'bread-butter sandwich' and a cup of tea at the office canteen. On the weekends that 'bread -butter sandwich' with tea would transform into 'bun-maska' and chai at Goodluck - the neighbourhood Irani joint. It's different now. Steaming hot puttu (cylindrical in shape, its made from moistened rice powder and generous helpings of grated coconut) served with kadala curry (chick-pea curry) or hot idlis with coconut chutney and other such delicious South Indian staples welcome me to the breakfast table each morning.
What the great Persian poet Sheikh Saadi wrote about Kashmir in the medieval period applies to me, here and now:
'If there is a heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.'
3 months ago, this seemed improbable. I was in Mumbai, eating out regularly. The same set of restaurants for lunch and dinner - a different permutation each week. A large workload had all but killed the time to explore some of Mumbai's gastronomic delights. The occasional get-together at a friend's place or a party at another part of town, broke the monotony. Then came the news of my Visa - it had been approved. I could go home.
Home, for many years, was Kolkata - that old city on the banks of the Hooghly in West Bengal. The city where I was baptised in all its gastronomic glory. It was a melting pot of cuisines - Bengali, Mughlai, Chinese, Marwari, Continental - from fine dining to heterogeneous street fare. Then my folks moved to the U.S. My new home. Without a visa, my new home was inaccessible. Mum-made became a distant possibility. Not any more.
I arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about a month ago and since then its been one big feast - one that's mostly comprised of my favourite dishes and preparations which only Mum could do justice to. Simplicity never tasted so good. She never had to exert too much effort to transform seemingly everyday ordinary fare to explosions of taste. A few masterful touches, a sprinkle there and a dash here and voila, t
he next taste bomb. Her armou
ry includes 
Sambhar ( a South Indian vegetable stew), Kaachiya Mor (spicy buttermilk curry), Meen Curry (a fish curry that has its origins in Central Kerala), assorted thorans (traditional Kerala stir-fry with assorted vegetables) Meen Kootaan ( a fish dish with lots of grated coconut), ultra delicious Chilly Chicken and Fried Rice and a whole lot more. Each one can set off a chain reaction of the senses led by the taste buds !! No restaurant anywhere can match this. I mean it.The other drastic but oh-so-good change now is that I'm eating breakfast. Skipping breakfast was the norm in Mumbai. Or at the most I'd grab a 'bread-butter sandwich' and a cup of tea at the office canteen. On the weekends that 'bread -butter sandwich' with tea would transform into 'bun-maska' and chai at Goodluck - the neighbourhood Irani joint. It's different now. Steaming hot puttu (cylindrical in shape, its made from moistened rice powder and generous helpings of grated coconut) served with kadala curry (chick-pea curry) or hot idlis with coconut chutney and other such delicious South Indian staples welcome me to the breakfast table each morning.
What the great Persian poet Sheikh Saadi wrote about Kashmir in the medieval period applies to me, here and now:
'If there is a heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.'
