Getting to know Indian food

[jaybee]

It is curious to me that I have never developed a palate for Indian food, though I have been served what was purported to be some of the best in its class.  I don't know whether my palate is trained to spices and fats that are so different from those that comprise Indian food that I just don't "crave" it.

Can you'all recommend a good restaurant in Manhattan for me to get a kind of broad introduction to the best of this cuisine?

I am also trying to move away from the high fat, high meat diet to a healthier mix of foods.  

Speaking of other cuisines, I have, for example , eaten several meals at Zen Palate, and have never had a desire to go back. I've eaten in what I'm told is the best Zen Buddhist restaurant in Kyoto,and though the food was subtle and exquisite, it was not satisfying.  I have eaten sushi for over thirty years and enjoy it greatly.  So I am not unready to enjoy new foods and experiment.

I don't know whether my palate needs retraining, or my experiences have not been broad enough or good enough.

If I can find foods to replace (some of the time) my beloved hamburger, (or rib eye) and not feel totally deprived, I would like to try.

[Suvir Saran]

Jaybee,

Try the vegetarian dishes at the Indian restaurants around NY.  You may find some that are light and wonderful and comforting.

Tandoor meats are excellent and a great way to get into Indian food.  A Good place to get Tandoori fare of good quality is Bukhaara Grill.  

The Karaaree Bhindi (Crispy Okra) is also very good there.  

Biryaanis can be easy dishes to begin with. These are rice casseroles if you may, with meats or vegetables layered with rice.  

Stuffed breads can be another good way of getting familiar with Indian food.  You can find breads stuffed with paneer (Indian cheese), potatoes, cauliflower, onions and many stuffed with meat.  They taste great with Raita (yogurt dip).

Try some of the many appetizers in the restaurants. They are often great.  Bhel Puri (a rice crispy treat tossed with chutneys and spices and potatoes, onions and sometimes tomatoes) is very tasty.  Pakoras can be delicious with tamarind chutney.  

As for why you do not crave Indian food, I wish people other than you could provide an answer.  There are hundreds of millions around the world that cannot crave a hamburger or rib eye.  That just is what life is about is it not?  Our very unique experiences with foods we eat are defined by our social make up and our childhood and adult experiences.  We are formed by where, how and with whom we live, share and travel.  We learn that which our families and peer also respect.  

Sometimes, just a concerted effort to try, scratch deeper than the visible surface and an intellectual effort to understand difference can take us into journeys with things foreign that would never have seemed possible. There is always the possibility of finding a new love, a new life and a new world outside of what is immediate today.

You are not alone. There are many others like you that cannot fathom Indian foods and spicing and cooking technique.  And similarly many that cannot fathom any of your favorites.  In the end, life balances itself out one-way or the other.

Certainly the others on egullet will also have plenty of pointers for you.  Maybe you will find new ways of courting Indian food.  And maybe you will find reason to get involved with it in a more meaningful way.  Or maybe it simply is not what you want from your foods.  You will still be that wonderful Jaybee that brings happiness in many ways to those many that are able to share in your life.

I love your passionate posts around egullet.  And certainly understand your point as being very valid and fair.  But I feel there is nothing another can do to change your experience.  The experience will become what you will make of it.  Culinary experiences are like most non-scientific parts of our lives.  These are like clay.  We can mold them as we wish and make them to be that which we want.

[jaybee]

Knowing where to go and what to order helps a lot.  Thanks.

[anil]

Easier still, go to Dimple (30th netween Bwy & 5th) and begin by

ordering their appetisers. This is a vegetarian place and Kosher.

Many indians are vegetarians, and a lot of focus is on vegetables  

[Jason Perlow]

Dosas are one of my favorite indian snack foods -- unfortunately it is a south indian dish and you tend to find them more in NJ, and not in typical moghlai restaurants in NYC.

Dosas are crepes made out of lentil flour, filled with various kinds of vegetable as well as meat/seafood mixtures. The most common one is Masala dosa, which has potato, onion and chiles in it. Its kind of like a flat indian knish. I love em.

[Suvir Saran]

Dosas are my all time favorite.  These rice and bean crepes to be precise are soulful and addictive.

You could find some of the best in the US at Pongal (which is the best in the US for these on their good days) or Mawali Palace, Madras Mahal, Tamarind, Guru and several other places in NYC as well.

I would personally not go expecting anything like a Knish.  In fact Knishes are one of my favorite Street Food in America.  While Knishes are mostly bland, a good filling in a dosa has a nice blend of spices and curry leaves.  Of course the mush made with the potatoes is of the same texture as that in the Knish.  While Knishes are doughy and dense, the crepe is light, crispy and very elegant.  

Maybe you could also try and visit Hampton Chutney in Soho.  They make consistently the nicest Dosas in town.  Their classic filling is also very good. Some of the fusion stuff works some does not.  The Lentil Soup they give changes daily and at times are much better than any Saambhaar you find in NYC and at other times uninspired.  But you will be safe in getting the crispiest, non-greasy Dosa in the city there.

Jason, thanks for thinking of Dosas... I am embarrassed that I had forgotten them last night, or rather earlier this morning.  How I wish to wake up to a breakfast of Dosas each day.

I am also equally fond of the coconut chutney or coconut mint chutney served at Indian restaurants with them.  Maybe as a beginner you would want to rely mostly on the chutney and slowly get used to the more acquired taste of the Saambhaar (lentil sauce) served alongside the Dosas.

Utthappam, a thick pancake like dish made with the same rice-bean batter is also a very successful and wonderful dish in my book.  In fact many Indians have a favorite, either Dosa or Utthappam.  Utthappams can be mellower and starchier.  It is worth trying both and certainly one of the two would be your favorite very soon.  I have not had any friend yet who has not found one or both of these to be the most wonderful surprise they could have found.

[Suvir Saran]

Jason,

Where are those 2 pictures from?

The smaller picture seems to be a Dosa made at home perhaps or by a chef that has not made too many restaurant style Dosas.

The larger picture is more like what one would find in restaurants.  

Dosas are one of a few Indian dishes that are made better in restaurants than they are at homes.  Of course like with all things in life, exceptions do happen.  

The chutneys and Saambhaar are better made at home.

[anil]

...........

Dosas are one of a few Indian dishes that are made better in restaurants than they are at homes.  Of course like with all things in life, exceptions do happen.  

The chutneys and Saambhaar are better made at home.

Many south indians would take excpetion to that -  

Crisp, big dosas wrapped the way Pongal and many restaurants do are nothing but tamasha.

At south indian homes ,dosas are smaller and served like chapaties are served in the north - hot, of the tava, with a  spread of spoonful of ghee.

[Jason Perlow]

Where are those 2 pictures from?

images.google.com. I just searched on dosas and dhosas.

[Suvir Saran]

Anil,

Actually not too many South Indians make Dosai too often for the reason I mention.  When they were made in olden days, people took time and made them with the Tamasha you so correctly mention.  If I have insulted someone, I am sorry.  But I was stating a fact most Southern Indian friends I know.  In fact a friend that stays a few blocks from me that is from Bangalore and has a southern chef, never eats Dosai at home.  She goes to Pongal or another place for more "authentic" Dosai.  And complains that the chutneys and saambhaar are not good.  Just as I did even before I met her.

In fact another friends mother came from Bangalore and had made Vadais and Dosais for friends over last summer.  Next weekend she came to our home and I had made a South Indian feast and with the Tamaasha I had learned from an elderly friend of the family.  This lady, in her seventies was in tears, she pointed to all the guests that I had taken her back to the memories she had of visiting her grandmother in Kerala and eating Dosais and Vadai as they were meant to be.  She could not believe that in a home in NYC she was eating Dosai and Vadai like that.  I was grateful to my parents for having lived in the south as I was young.  I was able to be with Mrs. Chidambram as she made food with the love of a saint.

Just as not many homes today make Phulkas as we did in old days, Dosais too have been adapted to suit the busy and new lives of people.  That is evolution of food.  But it certainly cannot change  the original version.  

But to think that a crepe, which was meant to be crispy and light, was ever meant to be thick and not crisp would be to change history.  Yes, when I lived in the South, most often, after pestering friend's parents to make me homemade Dosai I would get very different Dosai from what we get at fine restaurants.  But the same family friends would hire Udipi Chefs for their daughters and sons' weddings and all other family functions to prepare these dishes as they have been for ages.

Do many Southerners make them differently?  Yes.  But should that alter the history of the art of Dosai making?  I do not know.  But the greatest of Udipi, Namboodri, Iyengar and Mudaliar chefs do not think so.  They to this day, would rather eat their Dosai crisp and light and just like what many restaurants have tried to copy.  Certainly the authentic ones made by those above-mentioned chefs are simple in presentation, but never soggy, thick or chewy.  That I have not seen in the kitchens of these chefs.  They are mostly all Brahmin chefs with the exceptions of the Mudaliars.  Dosai and Vadai and Uthhappams come from the vegetarian lineage of the south.  

Hoppers, Idiappam, Appams and Masala Vadai come from the non-Brahmin kitchens.  While this is the history of these wonderful foods, today all across India and now overseas, Dosai have become famous and well loved.  Today even in the south, the history of their food is fuzzy to a few, but when you go to the puritans of any standing, they can tell you all about the history of their food, music and dance.  And in each of these arts, there were distinct and clear regional differences that may have been subtle to those from outside of the South, but largely apparent to all Southerners.  

I do not make Dosai at home very willingly for to make them authentic, crisp, light and correct, I would have to endure more tamaasha than I care to.  Thus as I do for naans and tandoori meats, I would rather eat out.  IN my kitchen, I strive to only make things that I have learned from grandmas to be exactly as they taught me.  The changes I make are subtle and more in the spicing.  Not in the execution.  But then I have a repertoire that is all very contemporary, in which I entertain and play with spices to create dishes that take their own form and taste.

In my classes and in my cookbook, almost 50 percent of the recipes would be driven from the Southern regions of India.  And actually in some chapters, almost 80-90 percent of the recipes are from that part of India.  Southern India has an ancient and very precise and completely Indian style of cooking that has largely remained pure and authentic.  I have complete fascination for that and such respect for that culture, its music, arts and food, that I do not think I can ever offend it.  

As a classical vocalist of Hindustani Music, I was lucky as a child to have performed alongside M.S. Subhalaxmi.  The Nightingale of India as many know her, my experiences of Southern food and arts is inspired and inspirited by those memories.

PS:  Tamaasha means drama in hindi.

[Suvir Saran]

Anil,

Actually not too many South Indians make Dosai too often for the reason I mention.  When they were made in olden days, people took time and made them with the Tamasha you so correctly mention.  If I have insulted someone, I am sorry.  But I was stating a fact most Southern Indian friends I know.  In fact a friend that stays a few blocks from me that is from Bangalore and has a southern chef, never eats Dosai at home.  She goes to Pongal or another place for more "authentic" Dosai.  And complains that the chutneys and saambhaar are not good.  Just as I did even before I met her.

In fact another friends mother came from Bangalore and had made Vadais and Dosais for friends over last summer.  Next weekend she came to our home and I had made a South Indian feast and with the Tamaasha I had learned from an elderly friend of the family.  This lady, in her seventies was in tears, she pointed to all the guests that I had taken her back to the memories she had of visiting her grandmother in Kerala and eating Dosais and Vadai as they were meant to be.  She could not believe that in a home in NYC she was eating Dosai and Vadai like that.  I was grateful to my parents for having lived in the south as I was young.  I was able to be with Mrs. Chidambram as she made food with the love of a saint.

Just as not many homes today make Phulkas as we did in old days, Dosais too have been adapted to suit the busy and new lives of people.  That is evolution of food.  But it certainly cannot change  the original version.  

But to think that a crepe, which was meant to be crispy and light, was ever meant to be thick and not crisp would be to change history.  Yes, when I lived in the South, most often, after pestering friend's parents to make me homemade Dosai I would get very different Dosai from what we get at fine restaurants.  But the same family friends would hire Udipi Chefs for their daughters and sons' weddings and all other family functions to prepare these dishes as they have been for ages.

Do many Southerners make them differently?  Yes.  But should that alter the history of the art of Dosai making?  I do not know.  But the greatest of Udipi, Namboodri, Iyengar and Mudaliar chefs do not think so.  They to this day, would rather eat their Dosai crisp and light and just like what many restaurants have tried to copy.  Certainly the authentic ones made by those above-mentioned chefs are simple in presentation, but never soggy, thick or chewy.  That I have not seen in the kitchens of these chefs.  They are mostly all Brahmin chefs with the exceptions of the Mudaliars.  Dosai and Vadai and Uthhappams come from the vegetarian lineage of the south.  

Hoppers, Idiappam, Appams and Masala Vadai come from the non-Brahmin kitchens.  While this is the history of these wonderful foods, today all across India and now overseas, Dosai have become famous and well loved.  Today even in the south, the history of their food is fuzzy to a few, but when you go to the puritans of any standing, they can tell you all about the history of their food, music and dance.  And in each of these arts, there were distinct and clear regional differences that may have been subtle to those from outside of the South, but largely apparent to all Southerners.  

I do not make Dosai at home very willingly for to make them authentic, crisp, light and correct, I would have to endure more tamaasha than I care to.  Thus as I do for naans and tandoori meats, I would rather eat out.  IN my kitchen, I strive to only make things that I have learned from grandmas to be exactly as they taught me.  The changes I make are subtle and more in the spicing.  Not in the execution.  But then I have a repertoire that is all very contemporary, in which I entertain and play with spices to create dishes that take their own form and taste.

In my classes and in my cookbook, almost 50 percent of the recipes would be driven from the Southern regions of India.  And actually in some chapters, almost 80-90 percent of the recipes are from that part of India.  Southern India has an ancient and very precise and completely Indian style of cooking that has largely remained pure and authentic.  I have complete fascination for that and such respect for that culture, its music, arts and food, that I do not think I can ever offend it.  

As a classical vocalist of Hindustani Music, I was lucky as a child to have performed alongside M.S. Subhalaxmi.  The Nightingale of India as many know her, my experiences of Southern food and arts is inspired and inspirited by those memories.

PS:  Tamaasha means drama in hindi.

[anil]

Anil,

Actually not too many South Indians make Dosai too often for the reason I mention.  When they were made in olden days, people took time and made them with the Tamasha you so correctly mention.  If I have insulted someone, I am sorry.  .....

Wow, I have to take this one at a time    No, no one is offended, and no, I did not mean South Indians in modern day NYC. In places in South India, even now, households that have servants and help, do indeed have the overnight-soaked daal and rava ground in the stone pestel - These are mostly brahmin families and well-to-do. I'd say if a few decades time the tradition and method and recepies will be forgotten and then your statement would would have a Popperian Validation  

I was made to understand that Bangalore has been transformed in its work-day cycle dues to a decade plus of software boom, which has hastened the changes in eating patterns very rapidly  

Big,Crisp Dosas I never had at homes of folks I visited in my youth - Be they Tamils,Andraits,Mysorians,Manglorians etc. I always did see them served in restaurants - More frequently so in South Indian resturants in the North, than in the South.

Your knowledge and cooking talents are well known -  That you performed carnatic along with MS really floors me  :wow:

[Suvir Saran]

I was not that bad a singer.  After coming to the US I developed Asthma that was stirred by alergies I developed here.  Or else, I would haunt you with my singing, if not my words.  How is  that?  

I was not that bad a singer.  After coming to the US I developed Asthma that was stirred by allergies I developed here.  Or else, I would haunt you with my singing, if not my words.  How is that?

For the record, I sing Hindustani, Shastriya Sangeet (North Indian Classical Music).  I was 10 year old when I earned my first paycheck, from the All India Radio, for singing secular songs along with a group of dozen other students.  Our singing was recorded and was played in Government Schools around the country under a program initiated by Indira Gandhi to teach youngsters those songs and hymns that had inspired generations before them to be secular and live peaceably in the midst of difference and strife.  I still learn music and from a wonderful Bangladeshi teacher.  She is the favorite student of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.  She came to India as a young girl who got a scholarship to study Indian classical music.  I am lucky to have her as a Guru in NYC and she with her teachings, has me connected to India in ways I would not be otherwise.  There is a magic that exists in Indian classical music, which when grasped with a certain knowledge can free one of a lot of tension.  It is very meditative.

Anil, I too have never had restaurant style Dosai at homes in the South or even Southern Indian homes in the North.  It was only Mrs. Chidaambram that made the painstaking effort to feed me as a child crispy, crunchy Dosai when I asked for them.  The rest, even my favorite aunts, did not make the extra effort it took to make them crispy.  I do not blame them or their help, for who would want to spend that much time and effort in a small kitchen when you have to feed an army.  You know how we Indians are.  Never do we eat a meal without at least a couple guests.  And even if you do not have guests, you eat so many Dosai, that the person making them would get tired and die, if they had to ensure perfect crispness each time.  But, there are others I have known, but who only make these perfect ones when I am hounding them with cameras and public embarrassment of their lack of culinary skills.

The exception to that has been when the food in the homes has been made by Udipi Chefs or other professionally trained chefs. These are chefs that make these meals several times a week. And are expected to make them to perfection.  Then, in the floor of the kitchen or living room, served atop banana leaves with rassam in stainless steel glasses and saambhaar in stainless bowls, you are given the absolute best Dosai.  Much better than what a restaurant anywhere in the world can give you.  There is a certain pride with which these exacting Udipi chefs cook. A pride in their art, their cultural superiority and also their need to let the outsider (in my case, it has been me) know how the South does not forget tradition.  Which actually to an extent is very true.

Anil, similarly, having been spoiled by a full time Maharaj in our own home, Panditji, I can never appreciate even some of the best Chapatis or Rotis in 99 percent of Indian households anywhere, north or south.  A person that has studied making food for a career and comes from a lineage of chefs certainly has some intrinsic knowledge that is vastly better than mine.  And then Panditji has 50 years of cooking experience that I and many other home cooks that are employed by families mostly do not have.  His kinds of Maharaj's are a rarity in India of today.  Many families have them, and they are all of an age group t hat their days are numbered.

Such is also the case in the South.  In the South, there has not been a very strong tradition of hiring help.  In fact that is one part of India where people are quite self-reliant.  The rich surely do have help, but are they what one could call universally a replicate of a professional Maharaj in the north or an Udipi Brahman Cook in the South?  Nope.  

So while I had several Dosai in South Indian homes, they were never like what I ate even in the most humble of Udipi wedding or other celebration.  While the settings would vary, the crispness and the lightness of the Dosai would never be compromised.  Any and all self respecting Southern Indians I know will even in NYC soak the Daal and Rice overnight and whole, and then grind into a batter that then ferments.  I have not known anyone doing it otherwise.  My God! Those MTR and other packaged mixes are more for the North Indian consumption.  And in my book, they are pathetic substitutes, but I can imagine why many use them.  It makes it easier for them to fix their cravings for these delicious treats.  My own Punjabi grandmother that lives in San Francisco, CA, uses these packages and actually to I would so great success so that the resulting Dosai would get a 6 or 7 out of 10 from me.  She is always disappointed that I do not call them great.  But at 80 Plus to stand with the support of a walker and cook 3 meals a day after having suffered a stroke, broken almost all her bones, she gets much encouragement from me, but her Dosai are one dish she makes that I willingly and greedily devour 5 or 6 of, but do not proclaim as yet another winner cooked by her.

Anil, have you ever realized how we tend to eat 6-8 Dosai in these homes???  I seem to never get enough. Why is that?  They are not that much smaller.  But I seem to enjoy eating them in such epic proportions when eating at my grandmothers or even in Queens with a cousin.  She makes better Dosai than what you get in Pongal.  But the first few are always not that great.  I always end up helping her make them, and eat just before her.  So she can make me mine.. And I then help her as she finishes with making some for herself.

But nothing to beat home made Saambhaar and Chutneys.  The South is a Mecca for those like me that crave and love pickles and chutneys. I could live in Andhra Pradesh and would be happy eating hot dog buns with the many different chutneys and pickles they make.  My kind of soul food.

Anil the Bangalore I remember I am told is very different from Bangalore of today.  I was last in Bangalore in 91.  It was still charming and free of pollution.  And one could get great food in several of the Udipi run restaurants.  Crisp and light Dosai and great steaming light, fluffy idlis.  For that matter, I am yet to eat an Idli in the US that I would want to finish happily.  I cannot seem to make them at home either.  God alone knows why.  Have you had better luck?

And thanks for fanning my ego.  If I need that ever, this is the time.  I feel like I should learn not to be honest.  For that can keep one safe from attacks these days.  But just as we all love authentic foods, so do I like to sleep without fear of any lies haunting me.

I love Dosai soooooo soooo much.  Where in NYC do you go to get the best Dosai Anil??

[Jaymes]

Jaybee,

Tandoor meats are excellent and a great way to get into Indian food.  A Good place to get Tandoori fare of good quality is Bukhaara Grill.  

First, I commend you, Jaybee, for making an earnest effort to cultivate a taste for cuisines that are unfamiliar to you.  So many people just revert to the usual and comfortable.

Survir has lots of good suggestions, especially Tandoor.  It seems to me that when sticking one's toes into a new experience, one is wise to begin slowly, with things that are closer to what one is accustomed to.  Like Tandoori Chicken...it's frankly difficult to imagine anyone not liking that.  It's not exotic at all.  Start there and the rest will come along much faster than you imagine.

[jhlurie]

I'd say Biryaanis and Samosas are the best break-in points.  Along with lots of different breads.

[sweetpea]

And if you come to one of Steve Plotthickee and my (JHLURIE)  orgies, I could serve you some nice young and tender and juicy freshly killed Moslem meat.

It is the best.

Specialy after we have been sent a shipment by Papa Sharon.

Those young kids that they kill daily, they taste especially nice.

But I would say Tandoori foods are nice to begin with.

Even Daals are nice.

Bengali fish.. but that could be too strong.

Tandoor, samosas, breads... excellent.

[Suvir Saran]

Sweetpea,

I would urge you to stick to the thread you speak about and if you need to bring outside elements, you should bring in those related with food.

Please do not attack anyone else, here.  

This board has been all about food and food related memories.

We all look forward to reading your food memories.

[Jaymes]

I know very little about India and Indian food, except that I am extremely jealous of everyone who does.  Although I have lived and traveled all over the world, have never gotten to India.  Yet.  But I am fascinated at the mystery and the majesty of the country and its people.  Even now, I can hear the high, melodic and hypnotic tones of the music, see the graceful flowing fabrics that adorn the women, the glint of golden bangles against their dark skin, the dots of red between the deep pools of their eyes.

I can smell the curries and sambals, and wonder at the exotic tastes that would feel to strange to my tongue, but to the natives, are just yesterday's "meat and potatoes."

And if I go, would I feel the strange pull of the caves in the North?  Would I be in awe of the Gods of the Ganges?  Could I know which of the unusual fruits in the market to select?  Could I ever truly comprehend the bravery of these proud people who threw off the stiffling yoke of other nations' oppression?

I don't know if I'll ever get the chance, but I think of those things when I enter our local Indian restaurants...the Taj Palace, the Clay Pot, the Sarovar.  I have no experienced guide to accompany me, so I go to the buffets.  What am I eating?  I may never know.  But I'll try it all.  And close my eyes.  And hear the music.

[Damian]

The best way to learn about Indian Food is read through all of the incredible contributions made by Suvir on the subject on his website and in these threads.  The man is truly a fountain of knowledge and passion on the subject.  

My introduction to Indian food was through lamb and chicken dishes, especially curries, which feel somehow more Western, like spicy stews.  Once you get an affinity and appreciation for that unique kind of spicing, then move on to the breads, the dhosas, and other unique specialties.  

I am somewhat new to a a desire for a more serious understanding and appreciation for Indian cuisine.  Having had it throughout my life, I never having a real craving for information about it or for the food itself until recently coming in here and being exposed to Suvir's magical writings on the subject.

[Suvir Saran]

Jaymes,

Have you considered writing as a career?  It seems to move me tremendously.  I find myself romancing an India that I often complain bitterly about when in its soil.  Very beautiful post you wrote. I wish I had anything more eloquent to say.  I shall try and share with you what India means to me.  

Is India mysterious as you suggest?  Very much so, it thrives in that mood.  Is India majestic?  Well, the answer lies in the many conquests that that land has seen.  The hypnotic clouds, the green leaves of every shade, the tall trees, the chirpy birds, the high proud mountains and the river that touches the largest number of masses ever in the world, and the music of the many different people that populate every corner of it, will stay with you if you give them a chance.  

For all of India's beauty, it is not for the faint of heart.  It can be the most shocking place on earth to land on, if you have your mind set on experiencing something magnificent the first moment you open your eyes outside of the airports.  At least the ones in the bigger cities have no magic.  Just the sheer numbers of people can dazzle you.  It is also this continuous contrast between the most sensuous and the most mediocre that India thrives in.  While many nations, cities and sights can give you a grand setting and beauty beyond measure; India leaves you speechless many times in your discovery of each of its diverse paths.  A speechlessness that is not always because of beauty, at times for having witnessed something grossly disturbing, but seeing in that horror, a sense of dignity and happiness that you cannot find anywhere else.

That dignity and acceptance of ones lot in life is also what could well be termed the bane of modern India's existence.  How many times could you think of walking amongst the poorest of the worlds poor and not be worried about being robbed?  In India, you can do that.  How often can you see children who are near death, smile at you a smile bigger than any you could see, and why?  For they are happy making contact with another happier than them.  How often will you find a human being hungrier than one who has not eaten in weeks, and see them offering you a first bite of food given them by a generous person?  India will afford you all these sights and then some.  

But there is no fooling anyone that India does not have a seedy underbelly.  While in many places the seedy underbelly can take over the flip side, in India, one will not see it unless one scratches way deep.  Volumes could be written about that India as well.  But that is more a matter of fact for those that study that part of India.

It is universally said by many that once you have made a trip to India, it changes you and affects you profoundly and for a lifetime.  Is that true for all?  Yes.  In fact, three years ago an acquaintance and his wife left for India.  We connected them with the grand dames of Indian society and these in turn were planning this couples itinerary.  This couple came back miserable and certain that they could never venture into the third world again.  They were humbled by the richness of the rich and devastated by the poverty seen by their eyes.  They simply could not look at the poor and give themselves a chance.  It was in that regard that they failed as much as India.  But still they were changed.  I most often hear the positive stories.  I would rather share the worst with you.  I live with the poor when I can, and often come back having learned which money, history and politicians cannot teach.  They have to share with those that can take it, an honest and fearless point of view.  Those that could be bitter to the faint of heart, but charming and scintillating to one like me. I come back with things I need to do for those that live in that poverty.  I come back knowing how blessed I am.

You question India in your flirtations rather sensuously.  Even more than it ever may seem after you have been there.  It is compellingly beautiful.  All of the Indian Sub-Continent.  No one part is any better than the other.  That is what makes it compelling.

It has tucked away at every nook and corner a new mystery to be discovered and entertained and spoken to.  In one nation, you have more diversity than in Europe and the Americas combined.  More languages and more seemingly different types of people.  IN India, if you look hard, you can find Indians as white as any Caucasian or Indians as Black as the darkest African you have seen.  And then there is a majority that is somewhere in-between.  

The Ganges is very awe-inspiring.  Even when it first touches the plains at Haridwar, where ashes have polluted its water, your eyes can either be charmed and enchanted or you could be a scientist looking for statistics.  But if you let your guard down, You will see in the very rapid flow of this rivers water as it first comes to the plains from the gargantuan heights of the Himalayas a serenity that one could not assign to any place where millions crows a small space meant for no more than a few dozen thousands.  But even in the bustle of the crows, there is an order, an energy and a camaraderie that mankind does not see very easily in a lifetime.  The Ganga has many names. Each of which is redolent of the turns the rives makes from the glacier from where it begins into the last leg of the path before it joins the ocean.  The myths of the Hindu lifestyle are apparent to even one that cannot understand the language.  India is deeply and totally visual.  You can be silent in India and never fell bored even for a moment.

Thousand years of oppression by its own and foreign rulers has left a deep impact on India.  What could have been a dark and mournful black spot, has fortunately for Indians and the world, translated itself into a people who enjoy today, each day as if it were there last one to live.  Certainly India has deep wounds that are still healing, people that are dying in millions, hunger that is greater than the population of many nations, but not once has this nation needed to suffer more tragedy than what it was blessed with.  India has changed in the last 50 years.  Many cities have become polluted like one could never imagine.  Every amenity you can want is yours to have.  At any corner of a big city, you can see some of the most beautifully dressed and poorest of poor people.  Again in this disparity is also what makes India brimming with hope.  Anger seems to have left India with the treasures it lost in almost totality to all its many invaders.  

What was left behind was a nation living in pride of what it had in the past.  For most of our riches, any which could be transported with just some trouble, are prized possessions in lands oceans away.  Indian students learn about their ancestors, their arts and culture through textbooks.  There are no museums of any worth documenting what was lost and taken from India.  What we have, are symbols of the hope we have today.  Our temples, mosques, churches, Sikh shrines, Buddhist temples, Jain temples and even the worlds oldest Synagogue in Asia, are what we have today.   The invaders also destroyed many of our temples.  But again, the legends and tales of these remain and get told with positive and hopeful commentary.  In fact, we have had our share of political tragedies.  One of which was the destruction of a Mosque at the hands of fanatics associated with a Hindu fundamentalist group.  That too left India hopeful in that not again would it allow for such anger rape its womb.  In Democratic tradition, that can often be painstakingly tedious, it is learning a difficult lesson.  India may have lost all those gems that fill pages of museum catalogs and fill room after room in galleries around the world, but what India gained was the innocence that can be found when a people are raped, but hope is still present.  India has picked up where it found itself just over 50 years ago, at its very lowest ebb, and today, with some anguish, it is on its way to becoming a big player in the world scene.

Now only if the leaders in the two larger countries of the Sub-Continent would let their people live as they choose, we could stop wasting funds on arming our land, but on feeding and educating the masses that could certainly stand to gain so much more with these very basic facts of life.  But then again, a question remains, would India be as magical if every Indian became a clone of the other?  Can India go through Industrialization without becoming singularly obsessed and hopeless as the many nations around the world that lost so much of themselves in gaining not that much in the larger picture.

But as Gandhi had always dreamed, there is a chance, if given in the right way, that India could sustain itself and its people in dignity, if we can take from the masses that which they indigenously produce and give them an economic stimulus that would sustain India's thriving culture without it losing it to mere greed for accepting that which is new.  But, I am no Gandhi, and most of India has forgotten his preaching's.  India is on the road to being another major power.  Only if it now lets itself live and peaceably with its siblings, its neighbors, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

[Jaymes]

Thank you, Survir, for taking the time to write that marvelous post...  It is breathtaking.  It only spurs me on to visit India someday.

[Suvir Saran]

Most welcome Jaymes.

[Steve Klc]

Watch what you say Jaymes.  For as you read through this board you will find so many posts by Suvir that are breathtaking in their scope, seriousness and true generosity of spirit that you may be left breathless, in a good way, if you read too many of them too quickly. Make sure you have a paper bag handy in case you hyperventilate.

[Suvir Saran]

Steve you are very bad.

What Indian dessert would you suggest for a novice, Steve?

[Saffy]

Kulfi... wonderful stuff! Now If only I could make it the way it should be.