The invisible man

I am an invisible man in a foreign land. When I say invisible, I don't mean the invisible man from H G Well's story of the same name or even the unnamed hero of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.  I am not complicated like that, nor do I have existential issues. No, my dilemma is simple one. The people I live with are my son, Suresh and daughter-in-law, Tulsi. I do not care much for them but I am stuck living with them. I don’t like their museum like house with its modern furniture made of angular lines and hard surfaces, the dark brown walls and white crockery that reminds me of a hospital.


I know my son asked me to stay with him out of a sense of obligation after my wife died. I agreed because I had no other option. He was always close to his mother than he was to me, not that I blame him. I was never the ‘involved father’ like these younger generation boys with their fancy strollers and carriers.

In my time, it would have been considered outright laughable if not ridiculous to be so involved with your kids. My wife took care of the house and the kid; I went and earned a living. Life was simple, with clear demarcations, not like the hodgepodge of today. Our fruit basket had only fruits in them.  My son's otherwise neat house has this one big bowl on the kitchen counter that catches everything from stray fruit to phone and iPad chargers. Just looking at it drives me nuts but I restrain myself.  "It is none of my business how they want to lead their lives," I try to reason.

The photo cue

My son is nothing like me. He helps his wife in the kitchen, they clean the house together and I am sure when they have a kid, he will get up in the middle of the night to bottle-feed the crying infant. I mean what do you expect when they call each other Sur and Taal (Rhythm and Beat)? What is wrong with calling each other by their full names, Suresh and Tulsi? How hard is it to pronounce two more syllabels?

Sur is the proud owner of a fancy camera that he carries with him everywhere. Taal encourages him, pointing to all manners of objects to be photographed. He twists his body into uncomfortable positions to make her happy but I suspect he doesn’t much care for the things he shoots. I just don’t know what the big deal is in shooting a clump of fresh pulled garlic or a zuchini. If you have seen one, you have seen them all. Why go around taking pictures and wasting film?

Apparently, the two of them have a food blog and all this photography is for that purpose. Taal also spends a lot of time in front of the computer researching food and re evaluating her diet. When I first arrived here from India, there was not a drop of milk to be found in the fridge. “Pappa, Taal is a vegan,” Sur had explained when I had asked for some milk.

“I thought vegetarians drink milk,” I had asked, confused.

“No Pappa, there is a difference between vegetarians and vegans. Vegans don’t eat any animal product, including milk,” he had said with a faint irritation in his voice. He had explained how Taal was against exploiting animals for their milk, eggs or meat. It was the strangest thing I had ever heard but I kept my mouth shut. It was a good thing too because I soon realized that Sur and Taal experimented a lot with their diets.

Business of being busy and an easy okra stir fry

This week has been busier than usual for me. Since it is Easter this Friday, the kid’s school had an Easter egg hunt on Monday. For the uninitiated, the hunt involves each kid carrying about a dozen candy filled plastic eggs to school and handing them over to the teacher. The teacher collects all the eggs, scatters them in the playground and lets the kids loose to hunt for a dozen eggs. One hopes that the kid doesn’t come back with the same eggs he turned in the first place. I ended up filling up two dozen of the multicolored ovals, because the kid got invited to a friend’s backyard Easter egg hunt the very next day.

 Eggs, eggs and more eggs.

Maybe it’s just me, but the last thing a five year old needs is two dozen candy filled eggs. Thankfully, my kid cares only for the occasional bouncy ball that may find its way in one of the eggs. The candy, he just dumps out or shares it with his friends.
If two Easter egg hunts weren’t exciting enough, we finally finished staining and filling up the 6x6 sandbox that he finished building last week. It had been sitting empty for almost a week before our good neighbors helped us haul 33 bags of sand back home. After an hour of hauling and emptying the 50 lb bags, the sandbox was full, the kid was happy and we were exhausted.

Yes, it is as big as it looks! (6X6)

No dinner was cooked that day. We had some eggs and bread, the kid a rava bhakri, which will be a post for another day. Today, after another exhausting day of dentist appointment, bathroom cleaning and carting the kid to and fro from school, the dinner was simple. The kid had dosas with leftover dal from the morning. He got a vegetable Panini for me from his office canteen which I had with some guacamole that he made and a few asparagus that I stir fried on the skillet.

For him, I made bhendi chi kurkurit bhaji (stir fried crispy okra). I say for him, because I have never liked the slimy vegetable, even though it turns crunchy and not-at-all-slimy when cooked to a crisp on slow to medium flame. But he likes it, so every so often I will pick up a bunch of okra for him. He likes it with a little bit more oil than usual and with lots of caramelized onions. So that’s how I make it.

Bhendi, Bhindi, Okra, ladyfinger. A cross-section of the slimy veggie

Do you see a pattern here that I mentioned in my last post, about doing things for each other? Though I have to admit, cooking okra this way is ridiculously simple, with just red chili powder and salt to spice it up. However, I am told that the sweetness of the caramelized onions and the crisp bite of the okra is a divine combination. My brother and sister swear by it and so does my better half. So, I give you bhendi chi kurkurit bhaji, which loosely translates to crispy stir fried okra.
I do have a few tips at the end of the post to get the crisp okra that is so desired but so easy to mess up into a slimy sludge. So do read them carefully before you go chopping and stirring some okra and onions in your pan.

Bhendichi Kurkurit Bhaji

Ingredients:
1-2 tblsps oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chili powder
1 cups of chopped onion, preferably red
2 cups of okra, cut into thin circles or slim stripes
Salt to taste

Method:
Heat oil in a wide pan and add the mustard seeds. As they start to sputter, lower the heat, add the turmeric powder and stir. Quickly add the red chili powder and the chopped onions, followed by the okra.
Our goal here is to minimize stirring in order to prevent possible sliminess that may occur. Sprinkle salt to taste, gently stir everything and cook uncovered on medium low flame for 20-25 minutes or till cooked through and crispy. Stir in between as needed. Serve with chappatis, dal and rice.

Tips:
Try to stir the okra as little as possible. The more you stir, the slimier it will get.
Do not and I repeat, Do Not, cover the pan at any stage of cooking the okra. It will get slimy.
Try to use a pan with a bigger surface area so as not to crowd the okra and subsequently steam it. The less crowded it is, the less slimy it will be.
Don’t put any water or liquids of any sort in the pan.