To (Aji) Thata...who introduced me to the delights of Haleem
Come Ramzan, and each week I would sample Haleem from a
different restaurant. My partner in this weekly culinary expedition? My Eighty
something grandfather. Every Friday evening it was something of a ritual. He
would pick up the packet of Haleem and have it ready for me by the time I
returned from work. After a hurried shower I would carefully open up the packet-typically
an inconvenient foil wrap which was liable to a ghee spill if the edge wasn’t
snipped close to the top, warm it to just the right temperature-a tad bit too hot and
the smell of super-heated ghee could be a turn off, and serve it in three brown
melamine bowls that lay waiting in my grandmother’s crockery shelf. I would
tuck in, pausing occasionally to comment on how it compared with the Haleem that
we had sampled the last time around. Thata,
always the connoisseur with all the fine things in life, would wait till he had
eaten the last spoonful to give his verdict.
Cut to my last weeks in Hyderabad. Fittingly enough, it
coincided with Ramzan. But this time around, thoughts of Haleem were pushed to
some remote corner of my mind. In a month’s time I was to head out of the
country. There was work to wrap up, shopping to be done and a visa to process.
Our little ritual became sporadic, sometimes because I was delayed at work,
but mostly because my enthusiasm was channelled in a different direction. It
was not until the very last day, as I had lunch with Thata that I mentioned in passing about barely having sampled the
Haleem that season. I can still remember the day vividly. The monsoon had set
in and I was worried about finding my way to the railway station through the
heavy down pour.
A few hours before I boarded the train, my grandmother and I
realised that Thata was not in the
house. A quiet man, it’s easy to miss his absence in my grandparent’s sprawling
old bungalow. It was pouring outside and my grandfather’s car was not in the
garage. I instantly sensed a hint of panic in my grandmother’s otherwise
confident bearing. But before we could
evaluate our options, we heard the car pulling in and stepping gingerly out of
it was my frail grandfather, a little package of foil wrap in his hands. Amidst
disapproving looks from my grandmother, Thata
quietly handed over the package to me, cautioning me to snip it carefully to
avoid a spill.
Ah! You beautifully capture the essence of Haleem and ....Thatha. It is that time of the year again. Haleem beckons. You so rightly say that to us, non-Muslims, Ramzan means haleem. I need to head out to get myself one of those foils - and yes, snip it real carefully!
ReplyDeleteLoved the blog post.. u have a way with words, vaishu :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Urmi and Ranju :)
ReplyDelete