Fruits you must try in India

One thing I love about being back in India is eating all my favourite Indian fruits again! There's an abundance of fruits throughout the year, and some you can find year round. Here are some of the most typical Indian fruits...

Mango is everyone's favourite fruit. This is a summer fruit: available from April through to July. The very first mangoes of the season are available from the end of March and these are always expensive. But very soon there will be an abundance of many different types of mangoes. The number of different varieties is truly astounding.   

Guava is another of my favourite fruits. Especially the pink ones! In India, they're eaten with black salt, but for me, they're best plain (and not too ripe).

Jackfruit is another summer fruit. This is the largest tree-bearing fruit, and it's also very ugly! The smell puts off a lot of people, especially when it's overripe. It's painstaking work to extract the fruit from the outer shell: inside are yellow rubbery sheaths with large seeds hidden inside. The taste is a bit like melon, and more like Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum!

Papaya is a fruit available throughout the year. It's commonly served when its very, very ripe, but I prefer it before it gets too ripe and mushy, sprinkled with lemon. Many people find papaya has an 'off' taste, but the lemon juice neutralizes it.

Pomegranate is another difficult fruit to 'clean' but so worth the effort. The pomegranate 'seeds' in India are extremely sweet and a brilliant ruby red. 

Custard apple is another interesting and odd-looking fruit. The easiest way to eat it is to scoop out the white flesh with a spoon and spit out the many large black seeds. Yummy.

Sapota (called chikku in the North) is another fruit I can't get enough of. This is a round fruit that looks like a small potato. It has a yummy caramel-like taste, and I eat it skin and all. I've been buying them at the same fruit shop lately and one day there were none left. “No more sapota?” I asked the fruit seller – because in India you have to always ask. I'm glad I did, because he told me to wait, and reappeared a few minutes later with a basket full of sapota. He had just picked them from the tree behind the shop! “Organic”, he announced, with a smile on his face.

What's your favourite Indian fruit?

Cricket fever

It’s hard not to notice that the Cricket World Cup is on. When the cricket is on, everything revolves around it. Then when India plays Pakistan, the world stops for a few hours. That’s what it was like on February 15^th...

Indian mailboxes

Bangalore’s disappearing heritage homes

I’m back in Bangalore after being away for a year and a half. I’m staying in the same neighbourhood and in the same house, but not in the first floor apartment where we used to live, but downstairs with my former landlords who very kindly and warmly invited me to stay with them.

I’ve only been away for 17 months but I’m amazed at all the new constructions in the neighbourhood. Once empty plots are now occupied by four-storey apartment blocks. Houses have been torn down and replaced by more apartment blocks. A whole row of three- and four-storey buildings now stand where there used to be a row of small shops on a corner of Thippasandra Main Road, a bustling bazaar-like commercial street. Over on the other side of 80 Feet Road in Defence Colony, more bungalows have disappeared and have been substituted with, yes, even more apartment blocks.

I mourn these lost treasures: not only the charming houses of another era but also the city’s beautiful majestic trees as they’re chopped down or their branches hacked off to make way for apartments which cover as much space as possible, leaving only a few centimetres between neighbouring houses and no garden space at all.

I understand the commercial logic of this trend: with the boom in property prices, every square foot is a valuable commodity. Why have a bungalow with a large garden when you can have a multi-storey apartment which multiplies living space with each floor built? Multiply the number of apartments with an average rent and you’ll hear the sound of money being minted. Few can resist cashing in.

But what about the city’s cultural heritage? Is that not valued? Unfortunately there are no heritage laws in Bangalore protecting its old, historical buildings. People see an old house as a burden which is difficult and expensive to maintain, and even a waste of valuable real estate space. Houses seem disposable: use for a while and then demolish. Build a new one. Repeat. “My house is very, very old… 25 years!” my landlady likes to tell me... If this house is 25 years old, then it’s the youngest house I’ve ever lived in.

Locals don’t understand why I’m upset when yet another house bites the dust. My first world mind must be clouded by my romanticism. Who am I to lament the loss of a few houses in a city which is not my own? After all, I’ve encountered the same attitude in my new home, a tiny village where old houses are not valued by many locals either. They’re not torn down (heritage laws forbid it) but they’re left to decay instead.

Recently I happened to stumble on these delightful old houses in Park Road, a residential street just steps away from Indian Express Circle, a busy traffic junction.  When I come across these beautiful old homes with wide verandas, typical Bangalore-style ‘monkey tops’, ornate wrought iron gates and big gardens full of trees, I can imagine what this city used to be like – the city everyone reminisces about and sorely misses but few try to preserve. I wonder for how much longer they’ll be around.

This past weekend I had the chance to explore an old heritage home in the neighbourhood of Basavanagudi… I’ll take you there in my next post!

Winter in India

A foggy morning outside my window in Delhi

On my last day in Chennai I read about the ‘nippy weather’ the city was experiencing in the newspaper.  It reported that minimum nighttime temperatures had dipped to 18.3 degrees Celsius, the second lowest temperature recorded so far in January. It described commuters on suburban trains switching off ceiling fans and pulling down windows to try to escape the ‘cold breeze’, bus drivers wrapped in woollen shawls and thick cotton towels, and morning walkers delaying their walks because even by 7:30 it was still ‘chilly’. The article then outlined a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ to deal with the cold and avoid getting sick. Advice included washing hands regularly, avoiding ‘crowded, dusty areas’, the flu vaccine for senior citizens, and eating onions, beetroot, fresh greens, pomegranates and guavas.

I always find it interesting and amusing to hear about the ‘winter’ in South India. Though it does get a bit cool at night in December and January and you may need to put on a light sweater, daytime temperatures in Chennai easily climb to the high 20s, hot enough to suntan.

On the morning I was travelling to Delhi the city was covered with thick fog, especially at the airport. Several flights were delayed as a result, including mine, also due to the fog in Delhi which is common at this time of year. When we finally descended towards the capital, nothing was visible at all because of the thick blanket of fog. It was only when we were a few metres away from touching down that I could finally make out a few buildings on the ground. The pilot announced that the temperature that afternoon was 13 degrees. 

This is my first experience of ‘real’ winter in India. Though the current temperatures are certainly bearable, Delhi can get ‘bitterly cold’ (as all my South India friends warned me), and temperatures can fall to 0 degrees. What I find difficult is not the outside temperature, but feeling the cold indoors. Central heating is not common, and electrical or gas space heaters are used instead.

It’s interesting to see how Indians dress for the cold, mostly bundled up in woollen shawls or sweaters. I’m surprised more people are not wearing jackets and coats. Women wear long-sleeved sari blouses with the pallu of their saris neatly peeking out behind them under thick cardigan sweaters. It seems very important to cover the head to keep warm, especially the ears! When we stepped off the plane in Delhi I watched everyone wind woollen scarves around their heads. Some pulled out their earmuffs. I’m surprised I don’t see more earmuffs here – they don’t seem as popular as in South India! Also, many people still wear sandals, worn with those flesh-coloured socks with articulated big toes. I bought a pair today and the package says ‘thumb socks’.

I was also touched to see that many Delhi street dogs wear winter coats! Someone is taking good care of them.

What I find odd is that though it’s winter, all the trees still have their leaves, so the city is still very green even though days can be grey and bleak.

Needless to say, I’m glad I’m heading back to warmer climes again very soon!

Thank you India!

I always felt like I’d be here forever. Or maybe it’s just because I feel happy and content here and would like to stay forever.

I could never imagine leaving India. “Someone will have to drag me away, kicking and screaming,” is what I thought.

But all things come to an end. And change is something which has to be accepted.

I feel very fortunate that for the past 6.5 years I have been able to live here continuously.

My husband and I had decided to move here. We weren’t sent over by some multi-national company. Before moving to Bangalore, we were living in London. One day I decided to quit my job. A week later my husband decided to quit his. He didn’t like living in London and wanted to leave. So we started to think of where to move to next… We didn’t want to go back to Belgium and I didn’t give going back to Canada even a thought. There were many opportunities in his field in the US, but moving there was out of the question.

We had been to India several times before, and as connoisseurs of Indian music and dance, it was time to give India a try. It felt right. And it was, because he got two job offers: one in Bombay and one in Bangalore. I was praying for Bangalore, and Bangalore it was.

I was able to continue my study of Indian classical dance in Bangalore. We went to concerts and dance performances, and travelled all over India to attend music and dance festivals. ‘This is what we came to India for,’ we would say, and I think we made the most of it. Working full-time, my husband often did not have the time to travel, but I didn’t hesitate to take off solo.

India gave me the chance to breathe, free my mind and let my creativity manifest itself. I started writing and this blog came into being and I found myself spending a lot of time writing about things I enjoy, mostly the Indian arts and places I’ve visited in India and found that people wanted to read what I wrote and even publish it. India gave me the inspiration to become a writer.

Thank you India!

I feel like I have experienced and seen a lot of India in the past 6.5 years... but I also feel that there’s still so much more to see and experience…

I know I’ll be back, but something tells me it won’t be the same. It won’t be like living here full-time, all year round.

I don’t know when I’ll be back and in the meantime I’m not sure what to do with this blog. Should I continue publishing something every month, at least a few photo essays, to keep my readers coming to my window? Or should I just put this blog on stand-by until the next time I’m in India?

I believe that things happen for a reason and the pain of leaving India is alleviated somewhat by another dream we’ve had which finally came to fruition recently. For years we’ve wanted to renovate an old stone house in a lovely medieval village in beautiful Istria, that magical peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. This house is helping me leave India, and embark on a new adventure. Though I’m awfully sad to leave, I’m ready to try something new.

A new adventure calls for a new blog… Thank you dear readers for looking through my window all these years. Wherever I go I’ll always have a window to look through, so please do visit me in my new home and share with me the view of Istria Outside My Window.

Read the sign IV

India's a land of quirky signs. After Part I, Part II and Part III, here's part IV of Read the Sign...

Wheels

Cardboard cop

Have you heard of Bangalore’s cardboard cop? Chances are that you have. The cardboard cop has been making news all over the world and has been featured in The Telegraph UK, ABC Australia, The Huffington Post, the BBC, and even a website called Weird Asia News, to name only a few.

This cardboard avatar of a traffic cop is the Bangalore Traffic Police’s way of multiplying their presence on the city’s roads and getting motorists to follow traffic rules. This cop is indefatigable, available 24/7 and bribe-proof. But will this cardboard replica make a difference?

After reading about him in the paper one morning, I had my first encounter with the cardboard cop when I rode past him in an auto-rickshaw on Raj Bhavan Road. There he was, standing with his arms crossed, peering into traffic. Since I had read about him only a day or two before, I knew this was the fake cop, and anyway his two-dimensional appearance was not very convincing and gave him away almost immediately.

Of course once you’ve seen him you won’t be fooled twice. Apparently the police have already foreseen this and plan to replace them from time to time with real policemen.

I wanted to take a photo of the cardboard cop on Raj Bhavan Road for this blog post but when I went there on Sunday, he was no longer around. Has he already been posted to another part of the city? Or was he one of the cutout cops who was stolen, after only two weeks on the job?

Click on 'play' on the image above to see a TV report about the cardboard cop!

Market lady

When I first moved to Bangalore over 6 years ago, there were supermarkets opening all over the place. I had wondered in this post what would happen to the neighbourhood markets and walking vegetable vendors. Would they lose their business to these big chains?

I have the impression that markets are still thriving and that many people still go to markets because they know the vendors and because they have the opportunity to bargain.

The same vendors still walk up and down my street several times a day with their pushcarts full of vegetables and many of my neighbours buy from them because they conveniently stop at their door and because they’ve been buying from them for years. A friend pointed out that if she ever needs some special vegetable she can always ask her regular vendor to pick it up for her and he’ll be sure to deliver it to her door the next day. You can’t beat that for convenience.

Last time it was the ‘puncher man’ I had featured in a previous post inspired by The Hindu’s “I am” column. Today I take a glimpse into the life of a market vendor, again courtesy of The Hindu.

The column by Deepa Ganesh tells the story of Lakshmamma, who’s been selling fruits and vegetables for the past 40 years at different markets across Bangalore. She works for almost 16 hours a day, leaving home at 4am to go to the wholesale market at Yelahanka. She then travels with the bags of vegetables she’s bought by bus, not an easy task, all the way to the Income Tax Office where she sells her produce on the pavement. She gets home only after 8:30pm. In the article she also gives some interesting observations on the city and how it’s changed over the years. You can read the column here.

Meet some of the market ladies of Bangalore:

Timepass

This is an Indian expression I love which is unique to India.

Timepass is ‘passing the time’. Or it can refer to an activity that’s used to ‘pass the time’.

A few months ago, I was on the train in Andhra Pradesh travelling from Visakhapatnam to the Araku Valley. A newspaper vendor was passing through the car. Instead of calling out ‘newspaper’ to attract potential buyers, he said: ‘Timepass!’.

Reading the newspaper is an example of ‘timepass’. Other popular timepass activities are watching TV, eating or sleeping.

Timepass can also be used to refer to a hobby, one which helps pass the time.

Samosapedia defines timepass like this:

“Wasting or whiling away time. Transliteration possibly of Kannada phrase "Kaala kaleyavudu" meaning "losing time," which has the same meaning. Also means doing something for leisure but with no intention of accomplishing anything.”

Timepass seems to be a fine art!

Puncher shops

Walk down any street in Bangalore and you’re sure to come across a ‘puncher shop’. This may be an actual small shop or just a dedicated space on the sidewalk. Instead of someone wearing boxing gloves, you’ll find a man repairing bicycle tires. For some reason, ‘puncture’ is systematically misspelt; that’s just one of the quirky quirks of India.

Cars, trucks, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, pushcarts all have rubber tires which get invariably punctured at some point or other. The ‘puncher shops’ provide a handy roadside service, anywhere, and almost anytime.

The Hindu has an interesting weekly column called “I am” which features “men and women who make Bangalore what it is.” I enjoy reading these little personal vignettes about ordinary people doing ordinary jobs like vegetable vendor, paper collector, brick maker and yes, puncture repairer.

Recently the column featured T. Balasubramanyam, a puncture repairer with his own shop in Malleswaram. He reveals a few details about his daily job. He keeps busy from morning to night, repairing up to 20 flat tires a day. You can read more about him and what goes on in a ‘puncher shop’ here.

Drummers for hire

The sound of drumming is common in my neighhourhood, especially during festival season. There’s a temple in the next street so many noisy processions go by on festival days. And just a few doors away, is an office of the Congress party who like to have noisy ‘functions’, complete with long speeches yelled into a megaphone and of course firecrackers and yes, drumming. Funeral processions are also accompanied by drumming as a way of letting people know that someone has passed away.

The sound of loud drumming can’t go unnoticed, that’s why the city authorities regularly hire drummers to make a lot of noise as a tactic to embarrass tax evaders and get them to pay up. I have already written about this here and in the past week there have been several stories in the paper revealing the success of this tactic. The drummers show up in front of the tax offender’s house or business with a banner listing his name and the amount due, and start drumming away. And it works!

The sound of drumming is quite hypnotic and even trance-like. During festival processions there’s usually a few people (always men) dancing away to the frenetic beat of the drum as if in a trance. The vibrations of the drum are also very strong and you can feel them reverberating off your body just a few metres away; it’s almost uncomfortable.

So I’ve often thought about these drummers, who they are, where they come from and especially, how they manage to drum for so many hours. Recent articles in The Hindu and The Caravan have mentioned these drummers and something about their background.

Most of them have day jobs working as labourers, construction workers, auto rickshaw drivers, etc. They’re hired to play the drum (tamate in Kannada) at funerals or by political parties for their rallies, and as mentioned above, by the city authorities. The Hindu article reveals that they make about 300 Rs. each for a few hours of drumming.

Believe it or not, as I write this, I hear distant drumming… it could be a funeral procession, a political rally, or a tax defaulter!

Once during Ram Navami, while I was lying sleepless in the middle of the night, listening to the loud, crazy drumming, I wondered to myself: “Why kind of drugs are these guys on?” Seriously, they drum for hours non-stop, and not only is it very loud, it's extremely energetic and fast-paced. It must be exhausting (and deafening)!

The Caravan article shed some light on their superpowers. A senior drummer reveals: “Without alcohol it is impossible to play the tamate... there is a lot of vibration that comes from the tamate. If you don’t drink, your hand will start hurting after a while. If you’ve had enough to drink then you can keep playing the tamate continuously, come rain or shine.”

Watermelon season

I love watermelon season. I noticed that Bangalore has two watermelon seasons. The first starts sometime in January. That’s when these huge piles of watermelons show up on the city’s sidewalks.

At night the piles are covered with big tarpaulins and I’ve seen lights and heard coughs coming from underneath, which means that the sellers must sleep with their watermelons (or pay someone to) – to prevent them from disappearing during the night!

They cost 20 rupees per kilo. Or less if you’re good at bargaining.

Another surprising thing is that any watermelon you choose is sure to be sweet and juicy.

Temperatures are starting to rise to the 30s now, and there’s nothing more satisfying than some fresh watermelon on a hot day!