For the love of Biryani

So this whole blog is going to be about how I make an Awadhi (Lucknowi) biryani. This is not really a formal recipe. If you are looking for an instruction set which you can reproduce without thinking, this is not the place. Don’t make a biryani. Do some yoga, evolve, then come back to the biryani.

I am no recipe writer so I’ll mostly be rambling here, trying to channel my SoC-ish thoughts about biryani into something cohesive. I will also try to make it look professional by adding measurements and probably fail. We’ll see.

We are making biryani for about 12 people. That would need 6lbs of goat and 7 cups (230ml cup) of uncooked aged basmati rice. You could up the rice to 8 or 9 cups too, if you are a rice lover.

Given my current mood, I am guessing it’s going to be a long read. But do read this several times before you start anything ok? Ok.

The most important part of this recipe is you

Pour yourself a plump dram of your favorite whisky. If you don’t drink whisky (but why?) then some wine or beer will do, as long as you feel calm, relaxed and happy. Not coffee though (although I love coffee to death). Coffee will give you a jittery high and then a crash. If you crash, so will the biryani. It’s got to be a beautiful, smooth curve that only fine whisky can afford, methinks.

Alright then, now that you (and I) are smelling the peat (or sherry) in the dram, and your frown has smoothened out a tad bit, here goes.

My Biryani

You see "beriani" (berian [fried]+ birinj[rice]) was a lowly middle eastern food. Pollow/Pilaf was the favored sibling. The thing came to our lovely land, found purpose, and became what it is today. There is no right or wrong way to make it. It is a canvas, so make it your own.

We are making a pakki biryani. Pakki refers to (almost) fully cooked components layered together into a final steam sauna called dum. Dum is the Indian version of slow cooking without loss of steam pressure and very low heat. Pakki styles are prevalent in northern India.

Also, the pakki biryani base is actually a qorma. Qorma is a generic term similar to braising. The alternative to the pakki style is the kacchi style which is prevalent in southern India. In the kacchi (raw) style none of the components are pre-cooked. It’s harder to make and takes years of practice. Pakki style is more forgiving and offers finer controls quite easily.

My biriyani has no greens, no ginger garlic, no mint, no coriander and no onions. No beresta either. Beresta (golden fried onion) is typically a loud flavor. Kacchi style sometimes needs strong spices which in turn needs sweetness from caramelized onions. Also, it lends color.

Awadhi pakki biriyani is smoother, lighter and refined. Much like a Scotch-Bourbon difference. Both are well loved.

Note: Even though I try to make the Lucknowi kind of biriyani, I add in some potatoes because I am a Bengali and that’s how it’s going to be. Deal with it.

The Biryani framework

Before you take my earlier punchline (“It’s a canvas, so make it your own”) too seriously and cook up some “jhol-bhat” and call it your biriyani, let me stop you there. No, you can’t do random shit.

There are some standards around a good biryani.

The end result should be aromatic and flavorful. The rice should be moist and soft but not mushy. Every rice grain should be coated with a fine layer of ghee (not too much) and shouldn’t stick. It’s important to be able to mildly taste the ghee because that captures most of the flavors. The meat should hold form but should be tender and buttery when you bite into it. And if you don’t like the flavor of ghee, then, I am not sure what to tell you. Cook the damn thing in some white oil, and don’t talk to me again.

Salt

You will screw this up and therefore a separate section on it. Salting is an art. You will salt the biryani is three stages. While prepping the meat, while cooking the meat and finally while cooking the rice. These three salting stages should add up to the perfect experience. So, pay extra attention when I describe the salting at each stage (Let’s hope I remember to, because this whisky is too darn good).

Prepping

Prepping is gold boys. You don’t want to hit a warzone with no bullets in the magazine. You prep. You don’t do a “Joy Ma...” (A Bengali's fervent Hail Mary) and plunge into biryani making. The biryani will plunge into you and then you’ll SOS to Uber Eats.

Prep.Powdered-Spices

Lots of spices go into biryani making. Most of these spices are aromatic. All spices are not made the same. A spoon of cardamom from Idukki is equal to several spoons of its Guatemalan cousin. So, it’s hard to tell you how many grams of each because I don’t know where you are sourcing your stuff from. I mix them by smell. And I insist that that is the right way. I use some of my earlier mix as a reference. It has worked so far.

Assuming you are buying your stuff from the local store, and not actually traveling to Idukki, here are some ball-park measurements. This will yield enough for one batch of biryani. But you would want to make 3 times this amount so that you can store and re-use.

• White pepper – 12gm
• Javitri – 8gm
• Jaiphal – 8gm
• Green Cardamom – 40gm
• Kabab Chini – 5gm (Also known as cubeb pepper. Although All Spice can be used too and honestly, I like it better).
• Shahi jeera – 10gm
• Star Anise – 25gm
• Fennel – 15gm
• Cinnamon – 10gm
• Dried rose petals – 5gm
• Coriander powder – 12gm
• Kashmiri chilli powder – 18gm: This is for color. The Mughals would up their Jizya if they saw you doing this. They had no concept of dried chilli until the 1700s. They used pepper for heat. And used Zafran (and maybe Ratan Jot at a later time) for color. They preferred Zafran because it had a milder color and had a fantastic aroma. But I added this anyway because I am not a Mughal dude and Zafran is expensive.
• Turmeric – 5gm
• Daggar phool (stone flower) - 10gm (Its a type of lichen with a very earthy aroma. This is something you probably wont get in the regular Indian store in USA. I suggest ordering it online)

Now smell the masala. Treat it like smelling your favorite perfume. There will be top, middle and base notes. You want your masala to smell cardamom-y (cardamom is king in biriyani). You want it to smell sweet from the Star Anise. Cinnamon and javitri-jaiphal should linger around in the middle somewhere. Daggar phool and coriander should linger towards the end. When you taste it, it should have that slight heat from the pepper.
The rose petals are just for flair and hence optional (being honest here, because the whisky is working its magic). Well I didn't want to berate the rose petal jadu. Just that its a top note, it's extremely light and you quickly lose that smell when you start cooking.

The magic of your biryani lies in this masala combination. Bring out your inner perfumer and experiment with this combination. Make it lighter, make it stronger. Do your thing. This will be your signature. I have merely open sourced a basic structure. Feel free to tweak.

Do not dry roast them before grinding if you intend to store it. See dry roasting makes the spice oils volatile and they release better. So you will need to use them immediately. So it doesn't make sense to release the spice flavors and then store it (duh!).

Prep.Whole spices for mutton (roughly cracked)

• Whole black pepper
• Javitri
• Jaiphal
• Green Cardamom
• Black cardamom
• Kabab Chini
• Shahi jeera
• Star Anise
• Cinnamon
• Dried rose petals (optional)
• Coriander seeds

Prep.Whole spices bundle for rice (roughly cracked)

I am tempted to call it a bouquet garni, but I won’t. I am too proud a Bengali to make this sound legit by appropriating French cooking terms.

• Green cardamom
• Black cardamom
• Bay leaf
• Rose petals

Use a cheesecloth or a tea infuser to bundle in the masala.

Prep.Meat

Buy 6 lbs of fatty goat (good for 10-12 people). Using fatty goat meat is of prime importance preferably from the shoulder (“agla raan”). The pieces of meat have to be large (4 inches or more). Why? Because the meat should retain shape. If you use smaller pieces of meat they will simply lose too much water and become dry, or disintegrate into a lump of fibers. And I will not deign to teach a Bengali how to select the perfect pink succulent mutton. You know what you are doing. Why goat meat? Is that even a question? Sure, cook it with chicken, crow, rat or whatever catches your fancy, but don’t call it biryani.

Prep the meat by blanching it in hot water. Once the impurities float up, drain the water and wash the meat thoroughly with running warm water. Submerge the clean meat in hot water again and add salt. If the water tastes like the sea, you know you have added enough. Then add some plain vinegar. Leave it like this for about 45 minutes.  Drain the water and wash the meat again. Time for some mild marination. 

Hold on, let me get another sip of this whisky (Ardbeg). Ah, there.

Ok so now add few tablespoons of full fat, not bullshit yoghurt, couple of teaspoons of turmeric, a dash of white vinegar, a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of kewra water. I was tempted to say “du chipi kewra”. Chipi means bottle-cap in Bengali and is a valid measure of volume for Bengalis.

Let the baby rest overnight (or at least 4 hours). Pop culture says one should add masala at this point but it’s a waste because protein fibers don’t really absorb any masala (there is a raging debate around this though). The vinegar hydrolyses the protein walls and the salt osmoses itself into the meat. The masala (essentially cellulose and spice oils, sticks around not knowing what to do). The turmeric though disinfects the meat.

Prep.Rice

First things first, select your rice. Use a variety that you have used many times before. Because its critical to know when its 80% done. Note that raw Basmati is rather delicate and hard to handle because it can break or become like mush if you don't pay enough attention while cooking. Parboiled (sella) basmati with sufficiently long grains are, in a way, more forgiving because they hold form and come out fluffy without much effort. So screw-up index is pretty low there. Sure, there is a loss of aroma but it's ok because the biryani masala adds enough aroma.

Wash the rice a lot many times in cold water. Use a light hand or it might crack because rice does get soft with water. Wash it until it isn’t cloudy anymore.

Then add whole milk, rose water and leave it alone for a few hours.

Miscellaneous preps

• Soak the 5mg Zafran in 150ml lukewarm water. You should get an absolutely glorious carmine colored tea after about 30 minutes.
• Soak some rose petals in 200ml warm full fat milk.
• Keep some alu-bukharas (dried prunes) ready.
• A couple of small lemons.
• Unsweetened khowa kheer. (Milk solids)
• Kewra water. (You can keep a bottle of rose water too, but you will use it only once, hence not mandatory)
• Mitha ittar. (You will need exactly a drop. So, optional)
• You will need a pot to cook the mutton.
• A biryani pot. You can use the same pot to cook the rice.
• A sieve for draining the rice. Use the same sieve to separate the mutton stock from masala.

Process

And now, the process. Oh boy, how I love it. I mean, everything that I’ll write will sound cliched. Every spice, every ingredient, every process is going to be so incredibly impactful on your senses. It is quite a heady experience, let me tell you that.

Process.Potato

This love of our lives has to be boiled in milk-water. I use Yukon gold potatoes here in USA.

Salt some water until it becomes sea water (3.5% salinity). Peel the potatoes, prick them with a fork and dunk them golden babies in the salt bath. Add whole milk. Add a couple spoonfuls of biriyani masala. Add extra turmeric and Kashmiri chilli powder. About 3 tablespoons of white oil in the water should prevent the boiled potatoes from fraying. And take your time with the boiling. Don’t go Shelby final gear. Let it gently simmer over a period of time.

Once the potatoes are soft enough, take them out. I use a blunt spoon edge to press against the potato to measure the give. Place the boiled potatoes on a plate, drizzle some ghee, some biriyani masala and several bottle caps of rose water. Cover them. Leave them boys be.

Process.Goat

Heat up a kodai/dekchi or any deep wide bottomed pan. Add the ghee. A lot of it. Don’t be shy now. You see, all the flavor of the masala will date the ghee. They love each other. My other half does weigh in on this romcom and I readily give way and pull back on the ghee. Alas, but the vagaries marriage.

Dunk in all the whole masala while the ghee is still not too warm. If you put whole spices in hot ghee, then it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that it’ll burn. Once the ghee heats up and the crazy good aroma hits you, introduce the mutton.

The mutton will harden up and caramelize a bit. Reduce whatever water the mutton releases and add in copious quantities of the biriyani masala. Keep cooking until the fat separates. Add in some water. Salt until perfection. Then throw in a pinch more.

After 2.5 hours of dum cooking (or use the damn pressure cooker if you will, it’s all good) use a tong to pull out the mutton from the jhol (yes jhol. Alright, stock). Keep them separately on a plate and add a dash of kewra water.

Drain the jhol through a sieve into a bowl so that you rid it of all the cooked whole masala. If the jhol is too watery, reduce it by simmering.

Sanity Check

At this point, you have:

• A plate of perfectly cooked mutton.
• A bowl of silky, red, slightly viscous jhol with flavored ghee floating on top.
• Perfectly flavored and cooked potato.
• Soaked rice.

Process.Rice

You might screw up the salting here, as I have. You have been warned.

Fill a pot of water. Don’t you worry about rice to water ratio because that is irrelevant here. You will be draining the water anyway so the ratio does not matter. Just fill a large pot with water until it is 3/4^th full. Salt the water and drop in the bag of whole masala that you made earlier.

Now how salty should it be? Rather than giving you an exact measurement, let me tell you that it should not be as salty as sea water (35 gms a liter).  I would say 15-20gms/liter is the right measurement, considering that you are using standard table salt. Now unless you are cooking in industrial settings, good luck measuring liters. So, salt the water until it tastes like sea water (or your memory of it), then throw out some of it and add some fresh water back into the pot. Voila!

Those who are the fancy kinds (Fleur de sel, Himalayan salt, Celtic sea salt and what not), just hire me to cook this dish for you. Some of your money becomes mine.

Wait for the water to come to a boil and the pour in the rice as well as the milk it’s been soaking in.

Then stare at the rice. Yes, I mean it. Stare at the rice for the next 15 minutes so that you stop the flame the moment its 80% done. Too much and you are screwed. How do you know its 80% done? Take a rice grain on the back of a spoon and press against it. If it breaks, it’s not there yet. If it just about squishes with some give then its right there. Anything more, start over because your biryani is going to be a gunky mess.

Once you have determined that the rice is cooked right, drain it in a large rice sieve, pass some cold water through the rice and spring into action.

Process.Dance

Oh, it is a dance indeed. So, while you stand staring at the empty biryani pot thinking about what to do, that rice will cook itself to death. So, Do. Not. Wait. Read this blog several times before you start making a biryani so that you know what to do. And trust me, this will give you perfection. You will deliver the first time, if you internalize the instructions in this blog.

All those smooth YouTube videos where they make biryani cooking look so darn easy, have probably tried it 500 times and have contemplated suicide on at least 3 occasions. But they never tell you that. You my friend, will nail it the first time. Because you have internalized my odd-looking instructions.

Step 1:

• In the empty biryani pot, drop in a few alu-bukharas (dried prunes).
• Squeeze a couple of small lemons (or one large lemon).
• Add half of the rose petal soaked milk. (Yes, it will curdle later, but it will taste nice)
• Drizzle 90 ml of the mutton stock. (Our whisky drinker friends will know the measure)
• Sprinkle some biryani masala.
• Add in all the mutton.
• Sprinkle some masala.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer to cover the mutton.
• Drizzle a table spoon of kewra water.
• Add all the potatoes.
• Sprinkle some biriyani masala.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer.
• A table spoon of rose water.

Step 2:

• Delicately shovel some of the rice in until all the mutton and potatoes are covered.
• Drizzle 90 ml of mutton stock.
• Sprinkle biryani masala.
• Two tea spoons of kewra water.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer.

Step 3:

• Repeat step 2 until you have one last portion of rice left.
• You should have to repeat Step 2 typically, two or three times.

Step 4:

• Layer in the last portion of rice.
• Drizzle in the remaining portion of milk.
• Pour in the Zafran water, along with the strands in a wide circle.
• Add a drop of mitha ittar. Mitha ittar is a poor man’s trick really. Ideally a teaspoon of kewra water should do.
• Seal the bad boy in, with aluminum foil.
• Place the cover of the biryani pot, tightly in place.
• Place the pot in an oven pre-heated to 430F (~232C). Set a timer for 25 minutes.
• Reduce the temperature to 250F(121C). Set a timer for 40 minutes.
• Bring out the pot. Let it rest for 15 minutes.

Step 5:

Bring out your inner Ramsey and open the lid with a flourish. Whiff in the brilliant, heady aroma. Get all your buzzed friends to do the same. Watch their faces melt when they smell it.

Step 6:

• Serve the food yourself. This is no bloody buffet. Give it respect.
• Scoop out the fluffy top rice into a large salad bowl sort of container.
• Take a plate, place a potato, place a couple of large pieces of mutton. Then serve some of the white top rice and some bottom (or tari) rice.

Alright then, champ! You did it. Reading this blog I mean. Because if you were cooking a biriyani while reading this crazily unstructured 'recipe', then god help you! Now that you are done reading this, read it again. And then one more time for your pappy's sake. And then a final time to gather all the details you need. Leave comments on how the cooking went.

Something from many years ago (Feb 8th 2010)

At other times I have always felt this wierd uneasiness in my being whenever she walked away from me in a fit of rage. She in turn would always expect me to come after her and make up with her. This time, things were rather different. She calmly asked me to get lost. I warned her saying that this will be possibly be our last meeting, implying that we were breaking up. Without batting an eyelid she asked me to return the band that she had given me as a token of our relationship. I asked her to take it off herself. She did. I threw away the box of chicken that I had made at home and had brought for her. I pointed at that box and said "This never happened S". She nodded again with a hard glinty face. I turned. And walked away. She waited for me to turn with that same stony look on her face. I walked a few steps and looked back.I saw her walking off, calmly connecting her earphones to her new Corby. This time there was no uneasiness. I hardly reacted. It did not bother me that this relationship was over. I walked to the nearest cigarrette shop. Bought a Marlboro Lights. Lit it with a massive HomeLite matchbox. I stood there on the sidewalk inhaling the nicotine and searching my mind and heart. I went through all the emotions that were running in my head. And none of them resonated with any pain related to this breakup. I knew I was right in what I was feeling about this relationship. I really wanted to end it. There was nothing in it anymore. Not after the incidents that had happened. I can have unlimited patience and I can also be blindingly ruthless in my decisions. This was one of those ruthless, clear and just decisions.

It was slightly cold and I could feel the cold air sneaking in through my thin saffron coloured shirt.I located an autorickshaw and hopped in. Surprisingly my mind was pre-occupied with the cold rather than the break up. In fact I was surprised and tried to search my emotions again. No...nothing. No trace of any pain anywhere. No longing. No sudden gush of uncontrolled emotion. No regret. No wanting to go back. Nothing. It was just the cold and nothing else. The autorickshaw was taking a long time to fill up. I got down from it and took another one. Before getting in I nervously looked at the seats. There was one empty at the back and one empty in front. I took the one at the back. The cold wind hit my on my face. I dropped the last of the cigarette and hugged myself to protect me from the wind. Suddenly I realized that the auto was going the same way that S had taken. For the first time I felt something jumping inside me. I felt this trace of a thought ballooning into a wierd nervousness. I did not want her to get on to the front seat. I did not want to get into this sticky situation where she and I would be in the same auto. I did not trust her. She was capable of literally anything. It was entirely possible that she might just turn around and slap me, like she had done in office. And once a deed is done it cant be taken back. I desperately wanted to avoid all possible confrontations with her. I was afraid of her rage and mine. I prayed to god that someone on the way would stop the auto and occupy the front seat. I kept looking outside and checking for a black dress. Finally a man got it. I was relieved. I wanted to go back home. I wanted to buy some food for dinner. I didnt want my brother to stay alone at home for too long.
My head was clean without a trace of afterglow. I had bought rumali rotis and a couple of plates of chicken chaanp. It was quite delicious. I knew my brother would like it. I was hungry myself. I had this personal understanding with myself that whatever happened was perhaps ideal. It was justice. And that gave me a rare clarity and relief that i cannot explain. I kept my chin tucked on my chest and walked on towards home. No I was not pondering about anything. I was simply keeping an eye on the road to avoid the spit and the dirt. Practicality and objectivism has always been the way I looked at everything in this world. And this incident was going to be no different.

Mar-ria-ge

My life right now is a frenzied rush to be on schedule. Code delivery schedules. Plans. Demands. Ideas. I have to be on top of things constantly. And then there are other plans. Massive plans. As the enormity of marriage dawn upons me, I realize how ill equipped I am to multitask. There is work. Then there is my marriage. I just have a month to make the machine work. I am keeping my fingers crossed. As work keeps piling upon me with depressing regularity I start wondering about the priority of things in life. All this time it was fairly simple: Work--Party--Booze--Sleep--Work. But now the variables and constants have completely changed. I am not sure if I can handle so many things at the same time. But I have to try. The sense of responsibility that I have come to realize is acute. That someone's existance has become synonymous with mine is a mindblowing realization. And that there is a seal to it. The seal of marriage. That is unnerving and exhilarating at the same time. I feel I have finally arrived!! I am not sure if this sense of arrival is premature. But I do feel good. Very good! :)

The Act of Breaking Bridges.

This has been happening ruthlessly. Endlessly. This state of flux is turning me into a ruthless unfeeling human being. Why am I not able to have feelings. What sort of completion am I looking for. Is there no end to this quest? That sense of utter completion that overwhelms you when you finish a beautiful lunch is totally missing. Not that I am not having beautiful lunches. But then, somewhere something is really really missing. I am getting things which I have always wanted. Somehow I am beginning to achieve things that I wanted to, albeit in a shaky manner. But that sense of satisfaction is not there at all. That sense of sit-back-with-a-beer-coz-tomorrow-is-sunday is not happening at all. I always get that feeling of relentless motion. And I have been breaking a lot of bridges. I have ruthlessly rushed over them. They have crumbled behind me. I have not even looked back once to at least spare a soft glance. I do not like what I am doing. But I believe I will have to do that. I am a traveller. And the bridges will break. But will I ever cross over. Will I ever be at peace with myself. I guess I broke one bridge on Friday. I dont want to break any more of them. I am done with it.

When the Human Engine ceases to exist

Today my grandmother passed away. She was 94.
I was having an unusually rough day at work. Things stretched to 1AM. I was almost half asleep in the office car as it sped past a foggy, neon yellow deserted Salt Lake. The driver woke me up. I trudged upstairs. It was 1:30 AM. Dad was awake. 'Your grandmom is having breathing problems', he whispered.
Thakma stayed with Boro Jethu in Barrackpore. Choto kaka had taken her to a hospital. She was in real bad shape. But this wasnt new to me. Almost every winter she has had breathing problems. She was after all in her 90s. Even last year she had similar problems but she just didnt give up. I was quite sure she would make it this year too. I was just so used to seeing Thakma around.
I nodded at my Dad, called Choto Kaka and then went straight to sleep. At around 5:30AM Dad woke me up. He did that quietly, almost tenderly. There was no grimace on his face. In fact I was grimacing with the sudden break in my sleep. He was sitting beside me.'Your Thakma passed away around 3 hours back', he said. I knew we had to leave for Barrackpore right then. My eyes were too heavy with sleep to actually make sense of what really happened. As the cold seeped in through my T-shirt, I realized that my Dad had just lost his mother. It seemed like an absolute impossibility to me. But there he was going through it right then. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, got dressed and left with Dad for Barrackpore.
I could not feel his loss. I didnt want to. I will never want to. My Thakma will always be remembered and revered. May she find solace from the unending cycle of time.

Random

I am sitting here amidst a cluster of computer code. Slightly high on Blender's Pride. Some Baul Blues is running in the background (my laptop). The words go something like 'My restless mind doesn’t listen to me'. Some amazing blues guitar tinkles ceaselessly. It’s a fast 4-4 beat. My mind has surprisingly calmed down. All the deliveries seem to be passé.
'You can’t be tied down. O my mind calm down or else I’ll never understand you.'
I have become blind to the glaring lights of my cube. The irritating AC doesn’t seem to disturb me anymore. Outlook just told me that I have a meeting in another 15 minutes. I am hardly prepared for the meeting. But who cares.
'Your wild dream will crash when you know that you are uncontrollable. You never listen to me O my restless mind'.

It’s been 3 and a half years since I have mustered up pointless words like these. Exactly 162 of them so far.

Outlook buzzes again. 5 minutes to the meeting. I open my PPT.
'You can’t be tied down. O my mind, calm down, or else I’ll never understand you.'

Howdy!

I checked my blog after a real long time. I happened to read through my last blog and oh freeeeaak!! Looks like I was pmsing or something! Crap!

Anyhoo. Here's something: I have taken to watching movies alone. No seriously! Its not that I am doing it out of compulsion or anything. Lets say I'm revelling in the solitude. You know, solitude doesnt necesarily translate to loneliness. I really enjoy it when I recline in the soft multiplex chairs, the AC going full blast, some jazz oozing out of the dolby speakers and humanity swirling around me, looking all busy and happy. Its supremely interesting to watch the people all around me. Everyone has at least one extra thing to do apart from watching the movie. Someone wants to balance his popcorn right so that it doesnt spill on his girlfriend's skirt. Someone has to check the long list of tickets so that his family and extended family of total 16 members manage to locate the right seats. Someone has to crack a stupid joke to appear funny infront of his friends. Mien Gott!
And then there's me. :) With a satisfied smile on my face. My butt comfortably nestled on the cushioned seat. Brain signals normal. Body temperature perfect. Thoughts expansive. Mind relaxed. Facial muscles arching a smile. Its fun guys. Try doing it. Its almost like a drug. :)
BTW, here are movies I watched: Kites (aaargh), Prince of Persia, Badmash Company. All in two days. Oh Fun!!

When a movie comes to the rescue.

There has been a sudden and absolute low. I may not really want to elaborate on the low point but it sure feels as bad as an after drug cold turkey. I didnt know what to do for a long while. I fretted around for a while till I switched on my computer trying to seek solace in the digital world.
And guess what I did to perk things up a little bit. I watched "The Pursuit of Happyness". Will Smith turned out to be the truest friend around. Although i was feeling as low as ever yet somehow I felt stronger. A good movie always works wonders. I hit a low...Chris Gardner didnt have a home!! I mean pychiatrists can take this as a prescription. If you are low, lonely, disappointed, depressed, in need of support....do yourself the following favour: Make yourself something nice to munch on, grab your favourite drink and settle down to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness". There's no need to run to your boy/girlfriend, husband, wife, mummy or daddy. You can do it alone!!

So ladies and gentlemen here's one to "happyness". CHEERS!! :)

Happily Anonymous

I've just started blogging and it seems like a whole lot of fun. Its like being able to speak out whatever i feel like, whenever i feel like. Its like talking to myself. It doesnt matter who is reading it. It doesnt matter who feels what about what i write. I can talk here and feel relieved that i spoke about something which i cant tell anyone. And look at the irony over here. I am potentially telling the world about what i have to say.
I dont have to worry about whether anyone wants to read about it or not. I dont have to worry about the linguistic or grammatical sanctity of what i'm saying. I can remove my post any day i want like i never said it.
You know what its like. Its like singing your worst bathroom song in your worst voice right in the middle of a busy market, at the top of your voice, and not have to worry about whether anyone heard it or not.

Delhi-6, Slumdog and Bejamin Button

Unrelated:
Wait hold on a second. Here's something: The first time i tried finding out the exact meaning of the word flurry here's what i found in a particular website:

Flurry Meaning and Definition. (n.) The violent spasms of a dying whale. (n.) Violent agitation.......

Just putting it out there. Interesting stuff.

Delhi-6
Seemed like a poetic love story about an old princess called Delhi. The best thing i liked about the movie was that somehow all those major stars didnt seem to take hold of the screen space. It was Delhi all the way. And that, i must say, is wonderful film making. The songs were "MINDBLOWING". Masakali and Rehna tu were absolutely dream-like, especially Rehna Tu. I like the melody,the sound, the lyrics, the arrangement...everything was totally mesmerising about Rehna Tu. No song can be a better serenade to old Delhi. Every actor did a great job. Sonam Kapoor looked very beautiful.
There were a few wierd points in the film which looked a little jarring. Abhishek Bacchan's parkour(clearing urban obstacles) came across as too far fetched and almost seemed like something forcefully fitted into the film so that he could convincingly be the "kala bandar" in the end.
But yes, i totally loved the film. It was nice. Great visuals. I wouldnt say its a classic that people will talk about for a very long time. But it was really wonderful. Value for money and much more.

Slumdog Millionaire
Oh yes. Thousands of people have written about it. Its a great movie too. But somehow not that great to win the oscars. Congratulations to Rahman. The music was wonderful. But if this won him an oscar then he should have probably got 15 oscars by now. The cinematography was absolutely great, so was the story telling. I personally believe that the one main reason that this movie won the oscar was because it celebrated the triumph of human invincibility, the unbreakable human spirit and its display of reality. Yes it has been done at the cost of India. But lets not be too touchy about it. Its just a movie and nothing else. Its a work of art and it should not be given more importance than it deserves. It should be enjoyed and thats it. One movie cannot re-define what India is and will be. India is India and it doesnt matter who thinks what about India after watching the movie. But its a beautifully made movie. Tight and precise without unnecesary frills and redundant dialogues. Some of the characters in the movie were unreal. Anil Kapoor's role was TOTALLY unreal. It was not necessary. I agree that the character was added simply to amplify Jamaal's plight but it could've definitely been made more realistic.
On the whole: Great movie. But not totally oscar material from a cinematic point of view. Yes, the cause was definitely noble. Human spirit it is!! But then so was Lagaan. Same human spirit. Same cinematography. If the songs had been removed from Lagaan then probably it should've got an oscar too. But then who cares. Pay and watch. And have fun.

Curious case of Benjamin Button

"It was like reading through a novel". Someone very dear to me said that when i watched the movie. Yes it was just that. IMMENSELY entertaining. Terrific costumes and make up. And Mr B.Pitt and Miss C.Blanchett were terrific as usual. Although a trifle long, it was wonderful nevertheless. The movie was filled with curious people. There were points in the movie where the pace seemed to trickle down a bit but it kept picking up pace each time. Heart-breaking, funny, wierd and very entertaining. Please watch it if you can sit for 166 minutes. :)

Happiness

Man has not learnt to do one basic thing. To be happy!! There have been thousands and thousands of philosophies and religions talking about rules and ways of life, about yoga, about "karma"(which the western world uses with elan without having the slightest idea about what it's all about), about money, the excess and the lack of it. I really dont understand it. Why isnt it there in the capacity of the human brain to experience unconditional happiness. Why do we have to "do certain things" or "follow a way of life" or "believe in something" to be happy? There is no inherent happiness. Man is not programmed to be happy. He is pre-programmed to eat, to sleep, to fornicate, to feel jealous, to want more, to think, to invent, to do a world of complicated things but is never pre-programmed to be happy. Why cant a human be happy just by his own self without any help from anything or anyone? Perhaps the ability to "think" took away man's ability to be happy. Because when he learnt to think he swiftly set about to find reasons to be happy although ideally there shouldnt have been any reason at all in the first place. He couldnt find reasons to be happy so he made reasons to be happy. He made big buildings to make him feel happy. He invented the concept of money so that there could be relatively "more" money or "less" money and hence people would feel happy about this relativism. He did a whole lot of things to simply conjure reasons to be happy, all the while pretending that he really needed those reasons. And finally he actually did become dependant. Hopelessly dependant. Terribly dependant. He finally invented the concept of "we are an unhappy people". And so here i am unhappily writing something in my blog, wishing i was happy!!....and complaining that i am not!!

Neon: Chapter 2

It wasn’t a particularly handsome day. It was a day in July. Such days in Bangalore had a weird tendency to cry, or almost cry and then just shed a tear at the end of the day! There would be various shades in the sky and it would seem that perhaps just a pinprick on one of those fat clouds would be enough to make them rain. Those old trees in Bangalore would prepare for battle against the winds and swish their manes in challenge. Dhrupad would stand at the window and take on the wind full blast on his face and pretend he is on a speeding ship. He still had a few childish “imagine” games left in his head. He still loved to pretend weird things sometimes. Chilli would be sitting on the bed with a cigarette held between his lips, trying to tune the guitar. He would have bunked classes again that day and so would have Dhrupad. Dhrupad’s attendance would invariably be lower than Chilli’s but he never would think twice about bunking classes with Chilli. After watching Dhrupad stand like a lonesome romantic near the window for around 15 minutes, Chilli would quietly get up and plant a solid kick on the Dhrupad’s posterior. It would already be pouring by then. Dhrupad would turn and give Chilli “the look”. After pretending for a while that Dhrupad did not exist, Chilli would come up with a novel (and horribly oft repeated) idea of heading off to the nearest booze hangout.

“Hey Saap!” he would say.

“Yeah what?” Saap would reply nonchalantly, still immersed in the beauty of the pouring rain and the almost faint daytime light struggling desperately against the bulk of the rain clouds.

“VB!” Chilli would say checking his watch, which he wore at all times of the day except perhaps when he was dumping his toxic waste on the surface of the earth. The time said 11 AM. Next thing that one would see, and least expect would be Chilli and Dhrupad stomping down to Vijay Bar, holding up their jeans and getting thoroughly wet. There would be some fierce calculations regarding the logistics of the payment plan and the funds thereof and finally there would be a holler, “Manja!! Yerad quarter old monk kudi. Bega”(Manja! Get two quarters of old monk. Quick). Manja would come running to the table with the two bottles. He would give his characteristic wide-angle smile, place the two bottles on the table and ask airily whether the young sirs would like to have something to wet their throats with, now that they are here. Chilli and Saap would look out of the window and see the absolutely pouring rain, look back at each other and instantaneously decide to stay back till the rain went down a little bit, very conveniently forgetting that they were already soaking wet and there was nothing dry left on them for the rain to wet except perhaps their throats!! And the throats they would wet by grandly ordering two large pegs of rum or whiskey and happily stretch back on those simple Vijay Bar chairs, with their young faces glowing in the dim bar lights and a cigarette dangling precariously at a corner of their lips. The bottles would be packed up so that they could be suitably honored in their hostel room. Such were the rains in Bangalore!

Dhrupad off course was doing none of that at the moment. He was merely holding a toothbrush in his mouth looking sleepily at the sky, which had again taken up that familiar watery tinge. He kept moving his right hand to and fro while his left hand rested on the 2nd floor common washbasin. There was a mirror infront of him happily twisting his face into weird contortions. This was the same mirror where he had styled his hair a hundred times with some borrowed hair gel before going off to meet his girlfriend. The heavy pregnant sky did not depress him in any way. He never got depressed with rain. He never got depressed with the cloudy skies. He simply disliked the heat and every other aspect of rain or pre-rain delighted him. And right now he was letting the rainy breeze slowly wake him up. For some reason he was desperately trying not to wake up, almost in an attempt to test the mettle of the rainy breezes. He didn’t want to wake up, yet he wanted someone or something to take the trouble on his behalf and wake him up for him. The occasional jolt of the rain gusts wet his face. A junior walking by hollered at him and asked him if he had done Chapter 2 of Digital Signal Processing. That was the exam tomorrow. Dhrupad was appearing for it with his juniors in hostel for the second time. None of his batch mates were around. All of them had headed home now that their final year exams were over. There would all troop back to Bangalore once their company joining dates start closing in. Dhrupad was left behind. He was left far behind. He had given his final year exams too but he had to stay back to finish his leftover papers from his earlier years in engineering. Three of them to be precise. Electrical Machine Design, Advanced Control Systems and Digital Signal Processing. His recruitment in one of the most prestigious Indian software companies stood almost cancelled. He had however managed to email the HR people in that company and get his joining date postponed till November. That would give sufficient time for the late results to come out. So Dhrupad basically had to stay alone for a few days more, sit for exams with his juniors, somehow clear them and then head home till the results came out.

Dhrupad was never really academically brilliant. All his teachers and professors told him he “had it in him” to make it big. They told him that he should put in enough hard work to actually “prove” it. Because in India there is only one sure shot way of proving one’s mettle and that was to get spectacular degrees with spectacular grades. Those who didn’t have them were pretty much doomed. They had lost the battle. They belonged to a lower strata of humans and their birth was basically a mistake! That’s what Dhrupad had come to know from childhood and that’s what he had quietly rebelled against since then. Dhrupad was never academically brilliant because...well there was no because. He didn't like it. For some stuck up and unexplainable reason he could never get himself to “study” for an exam. It was his weakness. He could never make a conscious and concentrated effort to round up the things that he had learned and then sit for 3 hours and puke it out on the answer sheet. He would be far happier trying to make a circuit or welding or maybe carving out something on the lathe. This was a great weakness he had and kept trying to justify that by telling himself that engineering is all about application and not just exams. He spent his last three years faring badly in his exams, bunking classes rampantly because he was bored and tired of the way he was being taught in college. He did not like one bit of it. His time in class was a long numb period from which there was no escape. It was a nightmare for him, filled with professors squawking loudly, telling the students about what questions were important for the exams or which part of the syllabus could be skipped or those endless sessions of reproducing word to word from the textbook or a bunch of old, museum-yellow notes. Such were his classes. He simply couldn’t get himself to conform to all this although he knew that he would be doomed if he didn’t. Then again he was too lazy to at least try to conform. Instead, he tried to justify his dismal performance. What he didn’t realize was that he was too idealistic to actually make any difference. All his tall talk about engineering not being just a series of exams wasn’t getting him anywhere. He was stuck there, depressed, angry, lonely and helpless. He was stuck there with the ignominy of having to appear for his old exams with his juniors. He was stuck there with a bruised ego.

Neon: Chapter 1

It was sometime in July, probably towards the end of that month, on a weird morning that we happen to find Dhrupad curled up on his bed with a blanket wrapped all around him in impossible curves. A leg sticks out from that mass of Dhrupad, blanket, blanket cover and pillow. It isn’t really cold or anything. Infact it’s pretty hot but for some reason Dhrupad loves using that old blanket of his and he enjoys sweating under it. He thinks that the evaporating sweat provides him with an air-conditioning effect and he religiously sticks to his weird doctrine. The room surrounding this spectacle looks on with quiet resignation!! Room No-226, a.k.a the music headquarters of the college campus. Essentially this room itself could be introduced as a character in this particular story. But then probably I’ll just stick to simplicity and not exactly stretch imagination too far. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about the room. It was just like any other room in that massive hostel. Decent sized, ceramic tiled floors, an old cabinet to keep clothing, two windows from which numerous empty beer bottles had been chucked out (much to the peril of the passerby), interior decorated with cobwebs and showpiece spiders, two tables one of which supports a majestic computer, two plastic chairs, two beds (joined together for better rolling space!) and two inhabitants one of whom is our Dhrupad with his air-conditioning blanket wrapped around him.
“SAAP!! Oye Saap! Wake up you sleepy bitch!” hollered another denizen of the hostel.
Oh, by the way, Saap is Dhrupad and Dhrupad is Saap. That’s his nickname in the hostel. He is sometimes called Snake, sometimes Saap and sometimes “Jol Dhora” which in Bengali is the name of a rather harmless water snake. The last nickname is used only by his roommate (who is also his best friend) during moments of drunken mirth and the usual leg pulling that is associated in most general cases! Dhrupad’s roommate is characteristically almost identical to Dhrupad. You could add a few extra dollops of determination, impatience, musical sense, height, reduce body mass to half and bingo you have the new and improved Dhrupad Version 1.1. Yes, both the roommates share the same name. For clarity we’ll call Dhrupad Version 1.1 as Chilli. The name Chilli is a gift from the hostel that will stick with him for the rest of his life, something similar to Snake. I mean you could possibly have a balding potbellied Saap in his miserable late thirties calling out to a familiar face in a crowd and another thin, slightly tired looking Chilli waving back vigorously from a line of fathers trying to get their sons admission to a good school! Whatever might the case be, the names “Chilli” and “Snake” are never going to get old, let alone forgotten. Well the package isn’t quite over yet. Chilli and Snake are, in effect, a part of a group of tightly knit, musical, intelligent, frequently drunk, wild, argumentative “would-be-engineers”. There is the “O fat one”, the one who never drinks, the one who never smokes, the one who always says cheers with a glass of cola, the one who smiles and gives off a thick laugh which oozes with sentimentality and the one who never gives up on you. Mesdames et Messieurs put your hands together and welcome the one and only Varun on stage!! He is also known as “Barunaxx” for some weird drunk reason that no one remembers. Next in line is the one who goes by the name of Anup. Anup is physically small, large eyed, had long hair at one point in time when the group was at its rowdy best and permanently in desperate love with whiskey. You would barely notice him till he starts singing songs and talking about music. He is a veritable gold mine of music, bands, composers, lyrics and you name it. Anup believes in frugality of words and takes his time and utters each word in a precise and accurate manner, which in most cases totally slices through the listener. Our man has this habit of looking at you with his severe big eyes and concoct an expression that will make you feel totally miserable about yourself. They call it the “Snoof Look”. A deadly look that we could use as a cool offensive to batter the opponent’s morale beyond recognition. Snoof doesn’t have too many complications in life. That off course, to the average bystander, is the apparent picture. Give him music, give him whiskey and he is happy to exist! Then comes the tall, lanky, massive toothed, intermittently available drummer Ketan. The Ketan!! Passionate and dead sure of what he wants out of a given situation. Situations, finally add up to form what we call “life” in general. Ketan has never really faltered, never seemed sad, never gave in and always lived with loads of things to look forward to. Only once, had he ever broken down. Only once, he was hurt and confused enough to cry (fuelled off course with large quantities of alcohol). That time was a rather rainy night at a place called Hockey Club in one of the posh areas of Bangalore. No I am not at all being melodramatic. It was actually raining and raining pretty hard. Everyone had coaxed Varun into getting them inside the club since he had a dependant membership. That was the time when Ketan had broken down and mentioned very solemnly that he had successfully managed to neglect his friends and the band because he had only one chance of making it to a good master’s school and he had to do what he did. He felt miserable for it. He didn’t want to say sorry because he never says sorry to friends. He just cried his heart out. I suppose in the midst of describing Ketan, I probably mentioned something like “the band”. Well, these boys here had formed a band named “Unicorn”. Chilli was the bassist, Anup the lead singer, Ketan the drummer, a guy named Nandakishore was the lead guitarist, Tim was on the rhythms and Varun, who joined in late replaced Tim when he had to leave the band for a personal reason. And our man, Dhrupad, the sensitive poet was the freelance lyricist who never really got to play in the band, a fact that he rues till date! Chilli knew the technique of getting words out of Dhrupad. Chilli would make a tune and buy a bottle of Old Monk XXX Rum. These two seemingly unrelated activities held the key to the word box that Dhrupad held. “Get Dhrupad drunk” was the motto when there was a dire need of lyrics and Chilli had veritably mastered the technique of getting it done.
“WAKE UP DHRUPAD!!” Said “the denizen” again, vigorously pulling at Dhrupad’s feet. This time the volume had gone up from a holler to a full-fledged shout that rang all around the near empty corridor of the second floor of the hostel building. Dhrupad lazily kicked with that exposed foot of his, murmuring something in his half sleep and clutching at his precious blanket like some refugee. There was an effort to pull off the blanket but it proved to be rather unsuccessful. The wrappings were impossibly complex and Dhrupad was heavy. The last resort was water, which off course was duly brought carefully preserved in the cup of a massive palm (our “denizen” was a big man!). It was then poured into the ears of our protagonist with a care that perhaps was never displayed in the chemistry lab while pouring an indicator. Dhrupad cried out and miraculously seemed to emerge from his blanket in one fluid motion that perhaps only he knew how to accomplish. Our man, “the denizen”, left the room. His head tilted back in loud laughter and apparently highly satisfied with his efforts.
Dhrupad off course never wanted to wake up. The reasons perhaps were more complex than just his love for sleep. In fact, he had gone to sleep last night hoping he never wakes up. Such suicidal tendencies weren’t new to him especially since the last few days. Off course, his suicidal contemplations were only limited to just that, contemplations. Like Anup sometimes says, “Dude! It requires more than a gun to pull the trigger.” Which off course he had plagiarized from some song and twisted the lines a little bit!
The heavy eyelids parted with considerable effort. They were reluctant to allow Dhrupad’s tired eyes to get exposed to the world. They were in love with the eyes and they wanted to protect them by remaining closed for as long as they could. The room all around wasn’t helping in the process one bit. It was 10 am but the room wore a forlorn and dead dress that morning. Completely unlike the state it had been for the past year, the room almost died that morning watching Dhrupad wake up. The cobwebs added a few thousand kilograms to his eyelids and the bright sun and the noise completely irritated him. The computer speakers were still quietly squeaking out some tracks from a Paco de Lucia album that he had queued up in his playlist before going to sleep. He had slept at 4 o clock in the morning. His head was throbbing. His hair was in disarray. On one side of his head it was pressed to the scalp and on the other side it was sticking out. He had slept all of those 6 measly hours on one side. Dhrupad finally looked around appearing to wake up. He surveyed the room with his tired sunk eyes till he found what he wanted. A packet of Wills Navy Cut smokes was lying nearby. Fortunately it was within reach or else Dhrupad would sit like that for another fifteen minutes before he could pollute his lungs. He stretched out his arm, heavy with sleep and fatigue and pulled the packet and the matchbox to him. He looked down upon the packet almost with pity and pulled out a cigarette. Upon giving a slight push with his thumb the matchbox tray came out with a scraping sound displaying its mundane ware of matchsticks. Dhrupad pulled out one unlucky stick and struck it against the side of the box. The head hissed slightly and glowed red before bursting into flames almost trying to have the last laugh at Dhrupad, or so Dhrupad thought. The smell of burning sulphur hit his nostrils. He tilted his head slightly and touched the flames to the cigarette already held against his lips. He sucked at the filter deeply till the humble glow at the tip turned into a defiant red fist worth all of 700 degree Celsius. Dhrupad breathed in the soft blue filtered smoke, deeply, felt a soft twitch on the nape of his neck and exhaled, slightly shuddering, satisfied and content. He then put his arms around his knees and rested his head on them and looked out of the window with his lips slightly twisted into a soft mocking smile. Thus began the day of Dhrupad Chaudhury, romancing the smoke!