Christmas around India!

(This article appeared in the 21st December 2019 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 14 https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/where-to-find-the-perfect-yuletide-spirit-11576857488372.html)

Short and Sweet

Exuding an easy, laid-back vibe with a menu featuring a few simple, yet delicious offerings, this tiny new Juhu café has a lot going for it.

By Raul Dias

We’ve always been firm believers that serendipitous discoveries are the best of their kind. And My Cafe, Juhu with its non-descript façade—further exacerbated by bare minimal signage—is just that kind of place. With no proper address or location available online, all we had to guide us to this brand-new café was a couple of pics taken by a colleague who’d chanced upon this charming, if a tad tiny, space a few days ago.
Cosily perched atop a dance studio and sitting cheek-by-jowl to a beauty salon in a bylane dominated by the iconic Prithvi Theatre and its equally famous and eponymous café, there’s a lot about this diminutive, three-table first-floor space that made us smile. Surrounded by potted plants and fairy lights, with comfortable bench-style seating, the almost-by-the-sea café is perfect for grabbing a late afternoon tea and snack.
Speaking of which, the menu here is a modest-sized one featuring a variety of short eats and mini meals along with a number of hot and cold beverages, including a range of teas and tisanes. Though they take a good half-an-hour post ordering to make an appearance at our table, our iced mocha (Rs 220) and fresh watermelon blossom mocktail (Rs 250) hit that sweet spot. While the former is imbued with the aroma and taste of freshly ground Arabica coffee beans with a swirl of chocolate sauce giving it some additional heft, the watermelon drink has a hint of tart cranberry that cuts through the melon’s sweetness perfectly.
Served with a small bowl of fried potato salli sticks, the duo of tomato-basil crostini (Rs 150) is generously portioned with meaty chunks of tomato and torn basil leaves. They taste scrumptious with the unexpected schmear of cream cheese applied to the toasted sourdough base in lieu of olive oil. Another open-faced preparation, i.e. the BBQ chicken subway sandwich (Rs 200) is the perfect blend of juicy morsels of roast chicken and onions, all enrobed in a tangy barbeque sauce sitting atop a huge focaccia bread slab.
Still peckish and craving something more substantial, we call for the recommended warm chicken burrito bowl (Rs 350). This turns out to be one of the best iterations of the Tex-Mex staple we’ve tried out in a very long time. With a toothsome base of plump red rice which is topped with loads of chicken, perfectly al dente kidney beans, yellow corn kernels and sweet bell peppers, all drizzled with a creamy cheese sauce, we know this one’s a winner with our very first bite.
Sadly, the over-spiced herbed baby potatoes with a yogurt dip (Rs 180) disappoint with the punishing, almost searing heat of fresh red chillies dominating every mouthful. Even the cooling hung curd dip does very little to calm things down. With just a single dessert of an outsourced (our server herself volunteered this information) chocolate brownie on the menu, coupled with the fact that it wasn’t even available that day, we decide to end things here a wee bit differently…with a spot of tea! 
While we wish that we’d been served the milk on the side instead of it being premixed into the hot beverage, our final order of the fragrant and soothing lemongrass chai (Rs 120) is the perfect curtain call to an afternoon (and money!) well-spent.             

AT: My Cafe, Jankidas House, 1st floor Janki Kutir, near Prithvi Theatre, Juhu.
TIME: 12 pm to 9 pm
CALL: 66756622/23

(An edited version of this review appeared in the 17th December 2019 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 22 https://m.mid-day.com/articles/short-and-sweet/22281162)

Some Like it Hot…Me, Cold!

Sometimes all it takes is a comforting bowl of porridge to help kickstart one’s journey down memory lane   

By Raul Dias

It was a particularly ferocious winter morning exactly 54 years ago, when the nuns of St. Angela Sophia boarding school, Jaipur had finally reached their wits end. The object of their collective exasperation—a preternaturally rebellious 12-year-old girl—was at it again. This time it was her vehement refusal to touch her morning breakfast bowl of salted oatmeal porridge that had landed her in trouble. Again.
Muttering under her breath that it smelled like old socks, the girl was ‘banished’ to the kindergarten section of the school. Her punishment; to hold the bowl of porridge high above her head with both hands while kneeling down in front of a phalanx of giggling toddlers. She was to continue doing so till she had made up her mind to give the porridge a go. She never did. And she hasn’t to this very day. That defiant little terror was my mother.

Goldilocks, anyone?
Despite the rather Dickensian tales of Mum’s boarding school days and more pertinently, her utter revulsion towards porridge of any kind, I simply love the gooey, unctuous stuff. And I have our dear old Mangalorean cook Mary to thank for that.
Having formerly been cooking for an expatriate British family for years before she came into our family’s employ, Mary had amassed an astounding cache of porridge recipes—both Indian and International—that were by now a firm fixture on our quotidien breakfast menu.
One of her greatest hits was the delicious-tasting Goan vonn that’s very similar to the divine Tamil sakkarai pongal. Also known as soji in South Goa, this rather complex porridge is made with a host of ingredients, chief of which is chana dal (split Bengal gram), bits of which are cleverly left whole in the preparation for texture. The porridge is further enhanced by the addition of thick coconut milk and palm jaggery. The latter lending to the dish an earthy, warm flavour that almost tastes like what petrichor would, perhaps. 
Now, long before the story of fussy Goldilocks and her trio of porridge-loving bears became a favourite of ours, my older sister and I played out our own version almost daily. Some days we were particularly partial towards Mary’s iteration of a simple milk-enriched, warm rava porridge, where toothsome grains of semolina competed with slivers of toasted almonds.
On others, which were more often than not, we relished the gloopy consistency of her steel-cut oatmeal porridge sliding down our throats. One that she’d top up with cold milk and a splodge of treacle to sweeten the deal. It would be decades later, on a work trip to Belfast, when I would discover the Irish way of truly ‘enjoying’ a bowl of oatmeal porridge…with a splash of peaty Irish whiskey added to it for a smoky finish!

Savouring the Savoury
However, it is not just the sweetened varieties of porridge that have managed to rouse me out of bed every day over the years. I am equally fond of the savoury porridge. To be more specific, I love the wholesome goodness of porridges like ragi ambali. Though mostly consumed as a thick drink in Karnataka, I like to enjoy the light pink-hued concoction as a porridge. This is achieved by adding a little more than usual amount of sprouted ragi (finger millet) flour to the water-buttermilk slurry to which a bit of salt has been added. But it is the final tempering with curry leaves, mustard seeds and chilli that makes the scrumptious ragi ambali a must-have for me.
On the absolute opposite end of the spice spectrum of savoury porridges is another Goan porridge called pez. Simply put, pez is just another name for a bland gruel made with rice and water and one that is known multifariously as kanjee or kunji in regions south of the Vindhyas. We Goans like to have our pez either with a bit of dried, salted mackerel pickle called parra or served with a side of tora shiro mango water pickle.

The Travelling Bowl
Whenever I find myself travelling to East Asia, I am quite surprised when I’m offered a breakfast porridge of the Chinese iteration of good old kanjee that they call, funnily enough, congee. Only here, one is presented with a virtual smorgasbord of condiments and toppings like fried shallots and garlic, cubes of sweet lap cheong pork sausage, chopped spring onions, salted duck eggs and the ubiquitous soy sauce to enhance the flavour of the simple rice gruel.
It really is testament to the prowess of porridge that we now have several porridge-only cafés and restaurants scattered across the world from places as diverse as Edinburg and Copenhagen severing the breakfast dish in the most interesting and dare-I-say, often contrived combinations. A recent trip to New York City saw me tuck into a bowl of cold oat and almond meal porridge topped with rice milk and a sprinkling of raw Colombian cocoa nibs and bee pollen at the world’s first all-oatmeal café simply called OatMeals.
At London’s 26 Grains porridge café, I tried a warm quinoa porridge accentuated with a tart burst of the antioxidant-rich acai berry purée that I was told was foraged from the Brazilian Amazon forests. Every spoonful of the exotic bowl was like discovering the joys of porridge all over again.
Now, if I could only convince Mum to do so too!
   
SUNDAY RECIPE
Vonn 

INGREDIENTS:
Chana dal ¼ cup
Water 3 cups
Salt ½ tsp
Rice flour ¼ cup
Palm jaggery (chopped into bits) ¾ cup
Coconut milk 1 ½ cup
Cardamom powder 1 tsp
Chopped cashew nuts ¼ cup

METHOD:
1. Pre-soak the chana dal in water for at least two hours before using.
2. Boil the pre-soaked chana dal with the 3 cups of water and salt for around 15 minutes on a medium-high flame till the dal is cooked, but not mushy.
3. Make a thick paste of the rice flour by adding a little water to it.
4. Add the chopped palm jaggery to the chana dal mixture and stir till fully melted and incorporated.
5. Add the coconut milk and bring to a slow boil, making sure that the milk does not split.
6. Lower the flame to its lowest level and add in the rice flour paste, stirring to ensure that no lumps are formed.
7. Once thickened, sprinkle in the cardamom powder and chopped bits of cashew nuts.
8. Serve either warm, room temperature or chilled! 


(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 15th December 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 12 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/some-like-it-hot-some-like-it-with-bee-pollen/article30297570.ece)

The cycle of art!

As one of the most iconic socio-cultural symbols of Dhaka, cycle rickshaw art—revelling in all its kitschy, hand-painted glory—is clinging on to dear life with all its might in today’s changing Bangladesh.  

By Raul Dias

As a young boy growing up in a tiny village close to the city of Sylhet in eastern Bangladesh, Bulbul hated his name so much, that he soon started to refer to himself simply as “BB” once he hit puberty. Named after one of South Asia’s favourite singing birds of the passerine family that are closely related to nightingales, Bulbul says he was teased mercilessly by his posse of pals for possessing what is generally considered a feminine name.
Today, the 54-year-old’s name is his number one USP. And he proudly brandishes it—not just in sparkly silver Roman letters, but also pictorially in the form of a flock of neon green painted bulbuls—on the back side of his cycle rickshaw. All this, as he negotiates his way down Dhaka’s traffic-infested roads every day, ferrying locals and travellers like me to and fro.

Art Attack
I’m in Dhaka on a short, three-day post-Kolkata-work-trip holiday to visit friends, where a few minutes earlier I had chanced upon Bulbul at a busy intersection in the northern Dhaka neighbourhood of Gulshan. Despite my non-existent Bengali language skills, the broken English speaking Bulbul is more than happy to introduce me to his colourful world of cycle rickshaw art as we ride downtown towards Old Dhaka.
With over a million such three-wheeled pedicabs plying the streets all over Bangladesh, the country is often referred to as the ‘cycle rickshaw capital of the word’. Interestingly, more than half of these million cycle rickshaws can be found in its capital Dhaka alone. And each one of them, like Bulbul’s ‘kitschy aviary’, is dressed up to the nines with their flexible, accordion-like hoods festooned with buntings, tinsel strips bedecking handlebars and passenger backrests covered in vinyl panels decorated with intricate appliqué work.
But the one place that such artistry is on full is at the backside of the rickshaws’ chassis on the 2X4 feet metallic rectangles sitting below the hood. Here is where you will see everything from gaudy coloured depictions of flora—particularly that of Bangladesh’s national flower the shapla (water lily)—to hand-painted 2D portraits of rosy-cheeked local film stars.
I spot other specimens decorated with paintings of rural scenery and even edifices like the Louis Kahn-designed national parliament house called Jatiya Sangsad Bhabhan and the Tara Mosjid. The latter being a star-spangled mosque housed in the ‘Armanitola’ Armenian quarter of old Dhaka that incidentally also finds its likeness printed on one side of a 10-Taka bank note. 

Root Level
I soon find myself standing in front of a dilapidated storefront in Old Dhaka where the mood inside is nothing short of frantic. Insisting that I see how the rickshaw art takes shape, Bulbul has brought me to perhaps the only street in the world that’s dedicated to this craft. Bangsal Street aka. Rickshaw Street is where one can find around a dozen or so workshops that specialise in everything from painting and decorating to upholstering cycle rickshaws.
Breathing in air thick with strong odours of paint, vinyl and adhesive, all intermingling with each other, I step into Mesbahuddin Hafiz’s shop where I can see finishing touches being applied to a cycle rickshaw that I’m told is to be signed off in the next hour or so. The sexagenarian Hafiz tells me that the shop was started by his late father in the mid-1950s when the whole cycle rickshaw art scene started to take form.
“Though my father, who was one of the pioneers of this artform, started off painting more simplistic scenes like sunsets and beaches, it was only a decade later that his work started to take on a more political tone,” says Hafiz, obviously referring to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence from Pakistan in the early 70s. This was a time when more propogandist motifs depicting scenes of uprising and civil unrest started to creep into cycle rickshaw art, thus making it a great socio-political reflator of the zeitgeist.

Problems and Solutions
But sadly, these days it’s no less of a struggle for independence and livelihood for artisans such as Hafiz. Facing stiff competition from cheaper and faster to produce digital art and screen printing, work for him has almost dried up he tells me. “Twenty years ago, I used to work on at least five to six rickshaws a month. Whereas today, I’m lucky if I even get a single rickshaw,” laments Hafiz, who also puts the blame for his and his fellow artisans’ workload decline on something lethal to his trade. In a bid to help decongest the streets of Dhaka, the local government authorities have stopped issuing new rickshaw permits, which obviously means almost no new rickshaws to paint.
But all hope may not be lost, after all. Recognizing this imminent death of an art form and taking some proactive steps to prevent it is a local Dhaka startup called Biskut Factory. Helmed by Bangladeshi artist Biskut Abir, this art firm seeks to promote and sell rickshaw art by having it painted on everything from apparel and accessories to household items like kettles and mugs to even bringing it into the mainstream via platforms like the popular, annual Dhaka Art Summit. 
All this, showing people like Bulbul and Hafiz that there may very well be some hope for them at the end of their rather psychedelic rickshaw art rainbow!       


Travel log
Getting There 
There are several daily direct flights linking Dhaka with New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. To travel within Dhaka, one can either hop into a taxi, auto rickshaw (locally called “baby taxi”), cycle rickshaw or public bus, though the last two options are only for the adventurous lot. While Indian citizens do need to have a Bangladeshi visa in advance before travel, the tourist visa is easily available at the Bangladeshi Embassy in New Delhi and is issued free of charge.

Stay
Dhaka offers an excellent choice of accommodation options that will suit most budgets. Located in the heart of downtown Dhaka, the luxurious InterContinental Dhaka (Rs 11,053 for two with breakfast, ihg.com) is one such option as is the well-priced, three-star Asia Hotel (Rs 4,177 for two with breakfast, asiahotel.com.bd), which can be found next to the Ramna Park and the historic Curzon Hall.

Tip
* One of the best ways to truly immerse oneself into the ethos of Dhaka is to cruise down the city’s main, arterial Buriganga River in a small wooden boat, often captained by singing boatmen! These boats known as koshas can be hired for as little as 150 Taka (Rs 127) per hour off the many piers next to the chaotic Sadarghat Boat Terminal in South Dhaka.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 7th December 2019 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 19 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/disappearing-hand-painted-cycle-rickshaw-art-from-dhakas-bylanes/article30164711.ece) 

Armenia: A hidden gem!

By Raul Dias

(This piece was first published in the December 2019 issue of The Week's Smart Life magazine)

Inside Armenia’s ‘Taj Mahal’

Showing us how one man’s marble mausoleum is another’s potato cellar, Levon’s Divine Underground Museum in the Armenian village of Arinj is a true testament to love, faith and perseverance.  

By Raul Dias

The tiny Armenian village of Arinj isn’t particularly easy on the eye. Dreary-looking Soviet era apartment blocks, with their chimneys belching grey smoke every now and then, dominate the landscape. Ditto for the gnarly, winter-ready trees poking lethargically up at the sky in all their leafless gloominess.
But then, no one really makes the 20-minute drive up here from Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan for all that. Home to Armenia’s very own ‘Taj Mahal’ aka. Levon’s Divine Underground Museum, Arinj features prominently on most travellers’ checklists. And there is absolutely no need to ask for directions or rely on Google maps to get here. Once at Arinj, all the signs (quite literally!) point out to this unique attraction.
Hidden 70 meters beneath a modest-looking home, itself placed haphazardly at the end of a meandering alleyway, are a series of rough-hewn subterranean chambers, vestibules and passageways. All carved out by one man named Levon Arkelyan paying heed to the request of his wife Tosya.
And no, that request wasn’t anything remotely romantic such as a beautiful memorial needing to be built for her. All Tosya desired was a simple potato cellar so that she could stow away the tubers she had grown in her garden for the winter. That was in 1985.
Over the next 23 years, what Levon created with his own bare hands—using rudimentary tools such as simple chisel and hammer sets along with what he claimed was divine assistance from spirits—was nothing short of a marvel. Working alone, almost 24 hours a day for over two decades, Levon managed to dig through the tough basalt layer of rock and reach the softer and easy to carve through tuff stone, recognised for its blushing pink hue.
It was from the tuff that Levon’s creations started to take shape. These included the main stepped pathway leading down to six small chambers and ribbed roofed vestibules, all elaborately decorated with Doric columns, traditional Armenian carved crosses called khachkars and stunning bas-reliefs. Covering over 300 square meters and at 21 meters long as it stands today, the original plan was for it to be a virtual mini city of 74 rooms. Sadly, that was not to be.
With Levon’s sudden passing in 2008, all Tosya could do was preserve the memory of her husband by turning his labour of love, faith and perseverance into a ‘pay-as-you-please’ private museum where she and her daughters take turns to guide visitors through a space that’s truly divine.     


Chamber of Secrets!
Perched majestically atop a small hill in Armenia’s Ararat plain close to the Turkish-Armenian border is the Khor Virap monastery. Literally meaning “deep dungeon” in Armenian, Khor Virap is said to be the place where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned in an underground chamber for 14 years by Pagan King Tiridates III as part of his religious persecution campaign. It was only in 301 AD when the king was cured of dementia by Gregory, who claimed to have been aided by divine forces, that he was set free and Armenia was declared a Christian country.     

(A differently edited version of this article appeared in the 1st December 2019 issue of the Hindustan Times, India newspaper's Weekend supplement, on page III. https://www.hindustantimes.com/travel/travel-armenia-s-divine-underground-museum-is-a-legacy-of-love/story-Zok0VgI7s7IDWw1N65iRtL.html)