Fork in the Road: Sarafa Bazaar—Indore’s Delectable Eat Street!

By Raul Dias

oversight (n)
an unintentional failure to notice or do something.

If there is one mantra that I’ve lived by all my life, then, that is, to come clean, admit one’s faults and be upfront. And now, more so than ever before, as I kick off something new and exciting such as this column that sees travel through that delicious prism called food! So, for me, its confession time.
While I may have eaten my way through everything from stewed silkworms in China to fried fruit bats in Mexico on my travels around the world, I’ve always given the cold shoulder to the street food of my home country—India. Blame it on an almost-zero spice tolerance level or on that old adage of the “grass is greener on the other side”, but I had never really tried to lose myself in the gullies and nukkads of India where an abundance of street-side treats can be found. Each more enticing than the other.
But all that changed a few months ago when I was literally dragooned by a group of friends into a night out of all things street food on a short trip to India’s cleanest city for a third year in a row, Indore in the wonderful state of Madhya Pradesh. And there is only one spot for such a feeding frenzy to take place at. By day, the 100-year-old Sarafa Bazaar is a busy market full of jewellery shops enticing patrons with gleaming necklaces and rows of stacked bangles. However, every night at around 11pm or so, it takes on another countenance. Yes, almost in a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde fashion Sarafa Bazaar transforms into an all-vegetarian street food haven like no other I’ve ever seen. Bangkok’s Khao San Road Market eat your heart out!
My very first stop is at the famous Joshi Dahi Vada whose proprietor Mr. Joshi is quite a food acrobat, I soon learn. Theatrically spinning a bowl of dahi vada in air and collecting it all back without spilling a drop, he makes sure you don’t leave without having a bite of his soft and tangy dahi vadas, sprinkled with lime, coriander and amchur. We next move on to try one of the bazaar’s signature foods—bhutte ka kees at a shop called Chhappan Dukan. Unique to this part of India, the divine bhutte ka kees is made from mashed corn smothered in ghee and spices and sprinkled with freshly grated coconut. On realising that I am a food writer, the shop’s owner insists that I try (for free!) another typically Induri dish called garaadu made up of deep-fried yam cubes anointed with a tangy chaat masala dusting.
Still on the savoury food trail, another dish I am literally forced to indulge in is the texturally brilliant dal bafna. Very similar to the Rajasthani dal baati, here the bafna ball is made with a mix of semolina and wheat flour and served with a dal that is spiked with mint chutney and mango pickle for a tangy hit. Served dipped in ghee, the bafna makes sweet love to the dal, resulting in a delicious coupling like no other.
Saving a little space for the sweet onslaught that is to come is a sensible move, as I find myself wolfing down a malpua-rabdi combination at the famous Jai Bhole Jalebi Bhandar that is soon chased by a mawa baati, which is a local take on a gulab jamun that sees this iteration stuffed with dried fruit and nuts.
It’s almost 1.30am as I waddle out of the still-bustling Sarafa Bazaar wishing and hoping that breakfast a few hours later at my five-star hotel could hold a candle to this kind of sheer street food brilliance…

(First published on 29th June 2019. Appearing every last Saturday of the month in The Free Press Journal newspaper, this column is all about viewing travel through the prism of food. https://www.freepressjournal.in/travel/sarafa-bazaar-indores-delectable-eat-street-2)

Great Escapes--29th June 2019

Great Escapes weekly Saturday travel page for The Free Press Journal newspaper curated, edited and produced by Raul Dias

Nostalgia—The Berlin Way!

Once a divided city split in two by a mighty wall, Berlin still pays homage to its communist past in myriad ways. Raul Dias takes you to a few iconic places in the German capital that both reference and celebrate this nostalgia equally.

By Raul Dias

Visiting a city like the German capital of Berlin taught me a very important lesson. And that is, that the feelings of nostalgia cannot be compartmentalised into rigid boxes of ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ memories of the past. Even though most of us, including myself, tend to lean towards the former as we reminisce of the good old days. I also learnt that the past cannot be ignored and white washed over!
In the few days spent there, I noticed that some of the most visited attractions in the city are those that reference the city’s divided, pre-1990 past so very well. The Berliners have even coined a very interesting phrase to represent their very own brand of nostalgia. They call it ‘Ostalgie’. Simply put, Ostalgie is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia) and one that popped up almost everywhere I went.
But, having said that, I found it represented the best in the following attractions and sites around Berlin:

East Side Gallery
I cannot possibly kick start this list without one of the most iconic and obvious remnants of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) taking top billing! Yes, I’m talking about the mighty Berlin Wall. Though most of the wall has be razed there are parts of it scattered across the city that still give you a good look and feel. Once such place is the East Side Gallery that lies between the Berlin Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke, located right next to the River Spree. Parts of the Berlin Wall are still there and street artists from all over the world have immortalised their work on the wall, which makes it a 1,316-meter-long piece of art. 118 artists from 21 countries painted on the wall in 1990, and since then it’s one of the most famous monuments in Germany.

Checkpoint Charlie
Another must-visit, given the sheer number of selfie-hungry tourists that swing by it is the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. A former border crossing at Friedrichstrasse, it was managed by the Allies during World War II and in 1961, the U.S and the Soviet tanks had a confrontation here. Checkpoint Charlie also served as a place where many tried to escape from East Berlin. Do make sure to check out the wall museum, as you can explore things which were used to escape underneath or over the wall and read stories of the refugees. The museum does serve to keep their memories alive, as it rightly should...

DDR Museum
Another must-visit Ostalgie strong-hold is the DDR Museum. Located right in the center of Berlin across from the Berliner Dom, the museum is perhaps one of the first places to go if you want to learn more about East German history in the city. This interactive museum has exhibitions that are all about the daily life in the former DDR in all its morbid glory! From the Stasi secret police, the Trabant car to the rather stark and austere DDR style housing and plenty more. Here is where you will get to immerse yourself into a different time and experience 40 years of the DDR.

Unterwelten
Speaking of an ‘immersion’, how about doing so literally? Descend into the bowels of the city and get yourself a piece of history in a place that is as different from a museum or a monument as it can possibly be. I’m talking of Berlin’s Unterwelten. Most people would not have been to a bunker or an abandoned U-Bahn tunnel, so now’s your chance. The Berlin Unterwelten offers five daily English tours through subterranean Berlin. You can experience World War II bombing raids through the eyes of citizens, see a former mother and child bunker or walk through the escape tunnels under the Berlin Wall.

Dinner and a movie, perhaps?
The city’s stunning Karl-Marx-Allee boasts two of the DDR’s cult cinemas, the Kino Kosmos and the Kino International—both offering you a different twist on your normal movie night. Kino Kosmos has a mammoth 3,400 seats and was the DDR’s largest cinema. Its architecture and typography will transport you in a different time. Still on the Karl-Marx-Allee, Café Sibylle offers cinemagoers a convenient option for a pre- or post-cinema coffee. The café exhibits authentic DDR flair with original painted murals covering its walls and everyday objects from 1950s East Germany dotted around its rooms.   

(An edited version of this column first appeared in the 23rd June2019 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper's Weekend section on page 3 https://www.freepressjournal.in/weekend/how-berlin-has-kept-its-nostalgia-intact)

Great Escapes--22nd June 2019

Great Escapes weekly Saturday travel page for The Free Press Journal newspaper curated, edited and produced by Raul Dias

Great Escapes--15th June 2019

Great Escapes weekly Saturday travel page for The Free Press Journal newspaper curated, edited and produced by Raul Dias

Great Escapes--8th June 2019

Great Escapes weekly Saturday travel page for The Free Press Journal newspaper curated, edited and produced by Raul Dias

12 Hours in Belfast

All it takes is half a day to discover Northern Ireland’s wondrous capital city—Belfast. Raul Dias shows you how!

By Raul Dias

8am
Start off your Belfast innings with a typical early morning Irish Fry Up breakfast of soda bread, eggs, bacon, sausages and baked beans. The Duke of York Pub in the city’s historic Half Bap area is an iconic spot that serves up one of the best fry ups in the city.

9am
Take in the colourful street art and murals that can be seen adorning the walls of buildings that dot the leafy neighbourhood of East Belfast, especially on the corner of Dee St and Newtownards Rd.

11am
Enjoy a little pre-lunch treat by going shopping! The huge Victoria Square Shopping Centre and Castle Court on Royal Avenue are two of Belfast’s best malls to lose yourself in. But for those of you who prefer to go antique hunting, then Donegall Pass is THE place, while Smithfield Market is a haven for bric-a-brac aficionados. For jewellery fiends, look no further than Queen’s Arcade, while the lovers of expensive baubles, art and home décor must make a pilgrimage to Lisburn Road that is also fondly referred to as the Diamond Mile of Belfast.   

1pm
‘Do’ a leisurely lunch like the locals at the St Georges Market Bar. Stop in here for a pint of ale and chase it with a plate of freshly shucked oysters and finish it all off with a potent shot of the whiskey-laced Irish coffee.

2pm
Walk off that lunch by taking a short stroll down to the Titanic Quarter, 10 minutes from the city centre along Queen’s Road for a tryst with Titanic Belfast. This fascinating museum is housed in the former Harland & Wolff shipyard, the exact same place where the seemingly un-sinkable leviathan of a vessel was constructed. The building contains more than 130,000 sq ft of floor space, most of which is occupied by the dry dock where the ship was built, as well as by a series of galleries including a replica of Titanic’s 5th and 6th floor banqueting suite.

3pm
Bask in the warm afternoon sun at one of Belfast’s most popular natural attractions. Spread over 28 acres, the lush Botanic Gardens in the south end of the city is the place to take in the beauty of nature, one fecund plant at a time after a hectic day traipsing around the city. Designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and completed in 1840, the gardens today house the Palm House and the Tropical Ravine.

5pm
One of the best places to get a feel of Belfast’s music pulse is at the Oh Yeah Music Centre that houses The Belfast Music Exhibition which takes you on a unique journey—from Ruby Murray to Snow Patrol, by way of Stiff Little Fingers, Dana and Clodagh Rogers, via The Divine Comedy, Ash and The Undertones. This exhibition tells of the glorious achievements and diverse musical talents that Belfast has produced over the years.

6pm
This city by the River Lagan puts on a spectacular show as the sun bids adieu. Start your tryst at the stunningly lit up City Hall. This mighty edifice and Northern Ireland’s pride and joy located in the heart of the city centre on Donegall Square first opened its doors on 1 August 1906. Take a tour exploring its inner bowels where local Belfastians register births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships.

8pm
Treat yourself to a Titanic-themed nine course dinner hosted nightly at the stately Rayanne House restaurant and inn, housed in the city’s very own Hollywood neighbourhood. Indulge in a champagne-lubricated meal served on Royal Doulton crockery that is composed of haute cuisine dishes like the exotic salad course of asparagus and watercress with roast squab and the sublime sixth entrée course of pan-seared filet mignon topped with foie gras and truffles among other delicious courses. All this, finally climaxing with the dessert course of spiced peaches in chartreuse jelly and French vanilla ice cream. How’s that for decadence at its best?

(An edited version of this column first appeared in the 9th June 2019 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper's Weekend section on page 3 https://www.freepressjournal.in/weekend/12-hours-in-belfast?fbclid=IwAR2YHMVSKszWWD2CcPfB-KpLUw1jAl7Hk7l-dVVRwlfmMeJQ0VbNmhi1Of4)

All ‘Thai’d Up!

The humble Thai street food staple of phad Thai—a dish that evokes childhood memories of quotidian vacation gluttony—is actually neither humble or even entirely Thai for that matter.

 

By Raul Dias

Like most of our mothers, mine loves to embarrass me with her highly dramatised versions of stories from my growing years. But then there is also one that is told in its purest, unexaggerated form. That’s the one where she would leave a 10-year-old me at a Bangkok street food market (with a couple of hundred Thai baht tucked into the pocket of my shorts) to eat my way through the better part of an hour or so. Alone.
All this, while she shopped at the next-door kitchen supplies market for her food and confectionary business back home in Bombay. And mum recounts this particular one without an iota of shame or fear that she might very well be judged as a grossly negligent parent in retrospect by those who lend their ears to her “amusing tale of desertion”.
But for one perpetually-hungry, overweight boy, those bi-annual supply runs to Bangkok meant just one thing: a feeding frenzy like no other. Temporary abandonment be damned! One, where the humble stir-fried noodle dish of phad Thai took top billing, above all the other cuttlefish skewers, spicy fish cakes, crunchy papaya salads and other yummies that make up the smorgasbord of Bangkok’s famed street food.

Noodle Quest         
Essentially a quick fix road-side snack made with opaque rice noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, peanuts, and egg, among other things, a good phad Thai, I learnt early on, will always have a taste that bears hints of that typically smoky, slightly caramelised flavour that is dubbed the “breath of the wok” or wok hei. All this is doused in the indispensable phad Thai sauce, where the tart tamarind pulp trumps its supporting acts of fish sauce (soy sauce for vegetarians) and palm sugar.
Everywhere we’d go in Thailand, I made sure to sample their version of phad Thai. Discovering that the fresh herb-centric north of the country threw in a hand full of the fragrant kaphrao or sweet basil. Or that banana blossoms were a particularly favourite ingredient in the phad Thai of Phuket along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast.  
Some of my best friends in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit neighbourhood where we’d stay were the phad Thai vendors who’d make sure to lovingly toss a couple of extra prawns onto my plate. I’d remember the area’s side streets—or soi as they are called in Thai—not by their numbers, but by the phad Thai carts that inhabited them. Such was my obsession with the dish.       

Austere Beginnings?
But despite its prima facie simplicity, phad Thai has a complex back story with a bifurcated culinary history to match. To begin with, there is nothing traditionally Thai about the dish. One school of thought believes that somewhere in the mid-19^th century phad Thai evolved organically out of the Chinese immigrant stir-fried noodle dish of kway teow. Only here, Thai ingredients like tamarind, palm sugar, and bird-eye chilies substituted oyster sauce and Sichuan pepper.
Another, more widely believed theory is that post World War II, the then prime minister of Thailand Plaek Phibunsongkhram laid out an elaborate, well-crafted plan to create a dish that epitomised the new Thai identity. He also wanted to wean the population away from an exclusive diet of the expensive-to-grow rice, making them consume rice noodles instead that needed just 50% rice to be produced. And thus, phad Thai came to the fore, successfully becoming the de facto dish that defines Thai cuisine today.    

   

Iterations Aplenty
Over the years that have seen me travel to Bangkok at an alarming rate for both work and pleasure, it has been this one dish that has consistently won me over with its wholesome appeal and not to mention, startling ubiquity. There’s probably ne’er a street corner in downtown Bangkok that doesn’t have at least one food cart vendor hawking an iteration of phad Thai. From ones with seafood, to others that revel in their porcine umami-ness, there’s a phad Thai to suit all tastes. 
On a recent trip to the Thai capital, I found myself chowing down on a bowl of phad Thai made with the latest international ‘noodle’ sensation, that isn’t even a noodle! Yes, the ‘paleo phad Thai’ is all the rage these days in Bangkok, where the traditional rice noodle find itself replaced by the ‘zoodle’ which is the hipster-chic name for the spirals made from zucchinis. Back home in Mumbai, a rather brutal phad Thai-related salvo was fired at me the other day when I sat down to review a health food café that had on its menu a phad Thai made with tender coconut strips.
I wonder what would my 10-year-old self make of that?   

SUNDAY RECIPE
Veg Phad Thai

INGREDIENTS:
Medium-sized rice noodles 100 gms
Vegetable oil 3 tbsp
Chopped shallots 1 tsp
Chili flakes 1 tsp
Firm tofu (soy bean curd) cubes 10 gms
Egg 1
Spring onion (cut in 1-inch batons) 50 gms
Bean sprouts ¼ cup
Crushed roasted peanuts 2 tbsp
Lime wedge 1

(for phad Thai sauce, mix together)
Dark soy sauce 1 tbsp
Palm sugar or yellow jaggery 1 tbsp
Tamarind pulp 1 tbsp

METHOD:
1. Soak the rice noodles in cold water for 3-5 minutes until soft, then drain and set aside.
2.  Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and stir fry the shallots and a pinch of the chili flakes until fragrant and a little brown.
3. Add the tofu, mix well and set to one side of the wok (add a few prawns for a seafood version).
4. Add the rice noodles and phad Thai sauce and toss well with the tofu-shallot mixture.
5. Break in the egg, stir well until done and mix with the noodles. Then throw in the spring onion batons and bean sprouts.
6. Cook for a minute and then transfer to a serving dish, garnishing the phad Thai with the roasted, crushed peanuts, the remaining chili flakes and a wedge of lime on the side.      

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 9th June 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on pages 26-27 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/thai-streetfood-the-breath-of-the-wok/article27618910.ece?fbclid=IwAR3g04yvUI1oNBzCTY_g0XqTn7DG44h4hd6c1Yj-0IppETmuDHDt3nSGd20)

Zurich in Style!

A vibrant, stylish city that lies on the shores of the meandering River Limmat, Zurich has a lot to offer the sybaritic traveller. Raul Dias draws up the perfect itinerary for a short, luxurious stay in the financial capital of Switzerland.

By Raul Dias

Although I’ve been to Zurich several times—for both work and pleasure—I’ve never really had the chance to let the city truly show me what it was all about. A quick layover here or a passing through lunch there was all I had ever experienced of this Swiss city that deserved a lot more attention than I was giving it.
So, on my last trip to Switzerland, I decided to slow down and factor in three days to savour Zurich and all it had to offer me. Veering away from the typically touristy clichés, my itinerary was all about seeing the city from a fresh perspective. One where food, wine and living the good life trumped the rest.

Lunch at Haus Hiltl
According to the Guinness World Records, Haus Hiltl was the first vegetarian restaurant in the world. The restaurant—which is named for its founder, Ambrosius Hiltl—has been serving vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike with meat-free culinary specialties from all over the world since 1898. When here, make sure to try the cumin-dusted roasted cauliflower soup and the aromatic saffron gnocchi…and thank me later! (www.hiltl.ch)

Go on a walking tour
Take a private, guided walking tour of Zurich’s old quarter and come face to face with the city’s past and present through a selection of buildings, stories and anecdotes. You too will be fascinated by the rich testimonies to bygone days which document the early international significance of the city, as I was. And after your tour, why not stop by the Kunsthaus Zürich which houses the most important collection of Classical Modernism in Zurich? (www.zuerich.com)

Bathe above Zurich’s rooftops!
Confused? Well, I’m talking about the experience of bathing on the rooftop at the Thermalbad & Spa Zurich amid the century-old stone vaults of the former brewery. Fresh thermal water bubbling straight from Zurich’s hot springs helps you catch up with some much-needed R&R. Here you have the choice of a thermal bathing world or the Irish-Roman spa ritual—both of which invite you to sink into a world of wellness inside the unique architecture and matchless building structure of a very special place in the city. (www.thermalbad-zuerich.ch)

Wine tasting at Zweifel Wine
Located in the Höngg area of Zurich, this family-run winery can trace its roots as far back as the 14th century. Today it produces spectacular wines from its own vineyards in the city, the Limmat Valley, and the “Gold Coast” region along Lake Zurich. (www.zweifel1898.ch)

Go chocolate crazy
Chase all that wine with another icon of Switzerland—chocolate…but with a little twist! The one man show that is Taucherli Chocolate is a super innovative place to see how Swiss chocolate making has evolved. Take a bite off founder and sole employee (yes, you read right!) Kay Keusen’s deliciously dark 77% chocolate bar made from Colombian cocoa nibs or his truly unique ruby chocolate and roasted rapeseed milk chocolate bars. Pure, undiluted bliss.
Did you know?
The average person in Switzerland consumes about 9.9kg of chocolate per year which surpasses every other country in the world!

Shop at Freitag
In a building in Zurich-West, namely that of the former Maag cogwheel factory, the Freitag brothers produce over 120,000 bags and accessories every year from recycled materials taken from the streets. Read: used, exhaust-stained truck tarpaulins, the inner tubes of bicycle tires, old safety belts and air-bags. All this is transformed into unique items—trendy, functional, waterproof and robust. In fact, it was Zurich-West itself that inspired the Freitag brothers to make bags out of truck tarpaulins in the first place, thanks to the colourful trucks that trundle through the district on the transit route every day. (www.freitag.ch)

Have dinner at Clouds
End your Zurich trip in style and up in the clouds, well almost! A few yards away from the Freitag store, Restaurant Clouds is located 120 meters above the city as it sits atop Prime Tower, Switzerland’s tallest building. Here the dining experience extends far beyond that of a fine dining restaurant, with a bistro and a bar promising spectacular views of the city, Lake Zürich, and the Alps at sunset. The scrumptious cuisine here is primarily Mediterranean, inspired by Catalonia. (www.clouds.ch)

FACT FILE

Getting There
There are daily direct flights from India to Zurich, Switzerland on a world-class airline such as Swiss International Airlines. From Zurich, the extensive network of Swiss Railways gets you just about anywhere in luxury and comfort. Visit www.swiss.com for more information.

When to Visit
A great all-year-round destination, Switzerland is equally wonderful in the spring and summer months from May to September—when one can enjoy hiking in the lush hills and mountains—as it is in winter from December to March when the ski season transforms the country into a snow-covered winter wonderland. Visit www.swissinfo.ch for more information.

Accommodation
Zurich has an excellent selection of hotels to choose from to suit all budgets and tastes. Two such recommended accommodation options are:
* Marktgasse Hotel Zürich (www.marktgassehotel.ch)
* The Dolder Grand Hotel (www.thedoldergrand.com)

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 8th June 2019 issue of The Free Press Journal newspaper's Saturday Great Escapes section on page 24 https://www.freepressjournal.in/travel/what-stylish-zurich-has-to-offer)

Mandu via Madagascar

With its impressive cache of baobab trees, the ancient, fortified city of Mandu in the southwest of Madhya Pradesh seems the unlikeliest of places to find the tree of African origins thriving and thus becoming a part of the rich, local folklore.    

By Raul Dias

It’s just been a couple of hours since our minibus—having climbed the long, winding road etched onto the Madhya Pradesh section of central India’s Vindhya Range—has deposited my friends and I into the ancient, fortified city of Mandu. Here, from our basecamp in Indore, to participate in the 2019 edition of the 10km Go Heritage Run Mandu, we quickly realise something thanks to our rather loquacious driver. And that is, that myths and Mandu seem to enjoy a ‘conscious coupling’ made in folkloric heaven! It wouldn’t be an exaggeration on my part to say that everything in this city that sits precariously perched on the Malwa plateau has some sort of phantasmagorical legend ascribed to it. A fact we bear witness to almost everywhere we go…

Heads and Tales
At the city center located Ashrafi Mahal, my 14-year-old de facto ‘guide’ Khayyum sidles up to me to tell me how one of Mandu’s earlier rulers, Mahmud Shah Khilji used the now-crumbling edifice as a gym in the15^th century for some of the portly concubines in his harem. Apparently, said concubines would be rewarded with gold coins that Khilji had placed on each of the Mahal’s steps they would climb as part of their exercise regimen. And hence the name ashrafi which means “coin” in old Persian.
One is also told tales of the great love of the poetess queen of Malwa Rani Roopmati and Sultan Baz Bahadur—who built her the rather vertiginous Roopmati’s Pavilion at his Rewa Kund Palace in the early 16^th century, so that she could gaze at her beloved Narmada river. All this, of course, before she poisoned herself upon hearing of Baz Bahadur’s death and the ensuing fall of Mandu. Then there is the famous myth of the headless soldier who till this day is said to guard the Tripolia Darvaza, one of the 12 gates along the city’s stone walls that serve as portals to Mandu.   

Trunk Call
However, one Mandu-specific phenomenon defies all logic and comprehension, leaving me both bewildered and fascinated as I sprint past a few of them en route the early morning heritage run. I’m speaking of the rather bulbous trunked, leaf-bereft baobab tree that make their unusual presence felt all over the city. Native to Madagascar, some parts of mainland, sub Saharan Africa and Australia, the baobab tree is known not just for its towering height (up to 98 ft), but girth (up to 36 ft) and age (3,000 years) as well. The rather succulent trunk of the baobab is also said to hold as much as 100,000 liters of water—perfect to soak up Mandu’s aqueous bounty of the monsoon—while its fruit bat-pollinated flowers hang upside down and bloom only at night. Their otherwise mild fragrance, intensifies even more when it mingles with the musky petrichor brought on by the cooling rain that hydrates the parched, arid summer soil, making Mandu one of the India’s most idyllic monsoon getaways.  
Found almost everywhere in the city for sale and called Mandu ki Imli, the elongated, rugby ball-like shaped baobab fruit when cracked open is a cluster of white pulp-coated seeds that resemble giant custard apple segments. Both the seeds and the dried pulp when powdered and mixed with chilled water are used to make a delightful sour, Vitamin C-rich drink that I relish at a hawker stall after a sweltering trek up Baz Bahadur’s palace. I even take back a few packets of the powder for friends and family.

Disputed Origins?
Back to Mandu and its myths. This time with regards to the ubiquitous baobab tree’s origins. I grapple with three different explanations for their presence here—each more fascinating than the other. Though one of them seems to have the empirical backing that only a precise science like geology can provide. But more on that one in a while as I lose myself in the miasma of myths!
A local shopkeeper selling the fuzz-coated fruit outside the gates of Ashrafi Mahal calls it ‘Khorasani imli’. When I probe further, he tells me that it was a group of spice route traders en route from Khorasan (which was what Central Asia used to be called earlier) to the orient, who brought along a few baobab seeds from their earlier travels to Africa which they then exchanged for food and shelter in Mandu.        
Later in the day, as I take in the ship-like silhouette of the Jahaz Mahal complex built as a harem in the second half of the 15^th century by Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din-Khalji and situated between two artificial lakes, my attention is once again drawn to a row of baobab trees standing guard at the east side of the complex. My guide tells me that the Sultan had a great fascination for exotic, foreign visitors. And that it was one such visitor to his court from Madagascar who presented him with a few baobab seeds that he had planted first at Jahaz Mahal then at other spots in Mandu.

P.S. Back home in Mumbai, my geologist friend Tanya shines some light on another baobab facet I had gravely ignored while busy romancing myths. Apparently, more than a 100 million years ago, India, Madagascar and Australia were all part of the mother continent called Gondwanaland and with the ensuing continental split, it created the three distinct paths taken by the baobab.
But that still begs the question; why Mandu and not Mumbai or Madurai?
   

Travel log

Getting There
Mandu can be reached from most Indian cities via Indore (2 hours) or Bhopal (5.5 hours) by road. The nearest railhead for Mandu is Ratlam on the Delhi-Mumbai main line which is just under a three-hour drive away.

Stay
The super clean rooms, tasty food options and efficient service make the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Department Corporation (MPSTDC)-run Malwa Retreat Mandu (Rs.1,900 approx. for two with breakfast, olrs.mpstdc.com) a good option. Another property worth checking out is the three-star Mandu Sarai Hotel (Rs.2,200 approx. for two with breakfast, sarai-mandu.booked.net).

Tip
* Plan a visit to the ancient Buddhist Bagh Caves and to the Bagh Village famous for its artisans who practice the art of block printing fabrics using herb-based dyes. Both the caves and the village can be found in the Dhar District on the banks of the river Baghini en route from Bhopal and Indore to Mandu. 


(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 8th June 2019 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 21 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/the-baobab-tree-madagascars-gift-to-mandu/article27609709.ece)