Happy Birthday, Lord Krishna!

Everyone needs to have a birthday party, and in India people celebrate the birthdays of their favourite deities with all pomp and due festivity. We were really upset that we will be missing Ganesh Chaturthi - the elephant god's birthday, which will be celebrated by millions in Mumbai next week, about three days after we come back home. Therefore we were very happy to learn that Krishna Janmashtami, the celebration of Krishna's birthday, was taking place this Sunday, on our first day back in Mumbai.

After a long trip up here, including a long cab ride to the Kochi airport, a late-night flight, another long cab ride to downtown Mumbai and a lost wallet (Kim's) at 1 am, the beginning of our Sunday morning did not look very promising. There were all of the annoying phone calls to make after losing your wallet (bank, credit card), all of them long, expensive, international calls that had to be made with a terrible connection on a street corner, plus the added issue of having to worry about our finances on the last leg of our trip, just when we were ready to start shopping in earnest (the rest of the shopping was just a warm-up). The first bright spot of the day presented itself as little spicy wadas, right across from the aforementioned phone booth. Wadas are deep fried little tidbits, normally served with some raw onions and chutney, and after almost a month in Kerala we appreciated the change in taste, and the bright clean flavours of little green chillies hidden inside the wadas were just what we needed in order to get our day going.

But back to Krishna's birthday. In our little alleyway, we saw a bunch of boys stringing up a rope with big clay pots, bananas, apples and other decorations hanging off of it. This was all a part of Dahi Handi, (as the festival is known in Maharashtra) and is one of the most popular activities of this festival, meant to recreate Krishna's childhood pranks of sneaking ghee and milk from the neighbours cupboards. A handi is a clay pot, and it is filled with Krishna's favourite foods: ghee and milk, often tinted a bizarre shade of fuchsia just for the fun of it. Such clay pots are suspended from ropes hanging between buildings and lamp posts all over the city, in some places as high as 20 meters above street level. Groups of boys (and in the last few years girls as well) called "Govinda Pathaks", or Lord Krishna's troops, form human pyramids attempting to reach the pots, break them with their heads and shower everyone under them with ghee, coconut, coins, pink goo and pottery shards. The groups often train beforehand and compete between them as top who can break the most handis, sometimes a 9-tier human pyramid is even attempted.
The group in our neighbourhood was little more modest, and ended up lowering their rope halfway through the exercise, which apparently you are allowed to do after three attempts, but it seemed like they gave up a bit too soon. Egged on by a small group of onlookers and one local policeman, they managed to get a guy up there to the rope, and he shattered the pots, showering everyone around with pink water. Needless to say, the whole structure under him collapsed at that point, leaving him dangling precariously from the rope, until they were kind enough to rebuild it for just long enough for him to jump on to the top, causing the whole thing to fall yet again, much to everyone's joy. Miraculously, there were no injuries.

After a refreshing "unlimited food" meal (see our third post if you don't remember what this entails), made even more "special" and unlimited because of the holiday, we decided to find a more culturally refined way to celebrate Janmashtami. Krishna is well known for his flute playing, and we read in the Time Out Mumbai that the world famous bansuri flutist, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurisia and his students would be playing a concert starting at midnight the night before and continuing for the next 24 hours. What more appropriate way for us, two flutists, to celebrate Krishna's birthday! We had missed seeing Hariprasad live in concert (by about a day) three times already, so we were eager to hear him. Imagine our surprise when the concert turned out to be a fairly small event, taking place in his Gurukul (his private school) where there were around forty people- mostly his students and their families- all seated the floor in a large living room, in front of a small shrine with Krinshna and Radha dressed in silks and decked with flowers.
When we arrived four of the students were playing along with a tabla player. They were taking turns improvising on a Raga, and and occasionally playing together. After about an hour, the Guruji himself appeared, dressed in a suitably yellow silk kurta, and without further ado sat down, was handed a flute and started to play. It was something between a concert and a master class, with him playing a phrase, and some of the students repeating or answering it. Sometimes these were just echos of what the master had played, but sometimes these answers took on a life of their own and developed into small solos. The atmosphere was magical, and we had the feeling that we were a part of a very intimate circle centered around the guruji. He played for around an hour and a half (which seemed to pass in an instant) and eventually just got up and went into the next room, while his students went on improvising elaborations on what he had just played.
Indian music seems to be less formally constructed than Western classical music. The performers are improvising on a Raga, so the length of the piece is entirely up to their discretion. There is also not the clear break that Western music has between when a piece begins and ends. The performers don't stand up or do stage rearrangements, and they usually start the next piece while the audience is still applauding or going in and out of the hall. The Tanpura still holds its endless drone, the tabla player might tune his drums (often in a rhythmical way) and some of the musicians might drink some water, but the music is almost continous, giving a very organic feeling to the whole concert experience. For this concert, which lasted 24 hours, the music really never stopped (or at least it didn't in the 4 hours we were there from around 5- 9 pm). Occasionally a new flute player would change places with someone who had been playing for a while, and even the poor tabla player was finally relieved by a colleague after playing straight for about four hours. At some point a huge pot of food was brought into the next room, and both players and the small audience got to take turns having dinner and paying their respects to the guruji before coming back to play or listen a bit more.

We left the concert tired and happy after having one of the most amazing experiences of our trip, inspired to go home and play our own instruments again, but sad that our trip, which seemed so endless in the beginning, would soon be over.

BARFI: Genevieve wins yet another prize for her answer to last post's barfi. She correctly guessed that the spice those pigeons were eating was fenugreek! Being a fellow flutist, she will hopefully appreciate her new Krishna key chain.

The Last Jews of Cochin

Just like the Arabs, Portuguese, and the English, we too, have ended up in Cochin. They all flocked here to buy spices, as the city is a convenient outlet for Kerala's spice producing regions, up in the western ghats. Old Cochin is filled with long streets of warehouses, or godowns as they are locally called, once all filled with the fragrant riches of the East. Pepper was, and still is, one of Kerala's main exports, as it has been since Roman times, when Phoenician and Egyptian ships came to the Malabar coast for it's "black gold". Today, the warehouses are largely in a state of disrepair, although there is still a lot of spice trading going on behind their ornately carved, usually turquoise, doors. Most "enterprises" specialize in one sort of spice: Chillies, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, ginger as well as rice, tea and tobacco.


Kerala is also known for its old Jewish community, possibly settled here since the first century CE, with a large influx in population around the 15th century, when Sephardi Jews found a safe haven here from the prosecution of the Catholic Kings and the Inquisition. Yesterday we set out for "Jew Town", as it officially called with no negative connotations intended, and went to see the Pardesi Synagogue, which dates from the 16th century. It was unfortunately closed, which was rather disappointing, and left us at the mercy of the the Kashmiri shopkeepers who run the "antique shops" and "craft emporiums" (read: expensive, new, badly-made crap for tourists). A trip up "Jew Street" led us into the embroidery shop of Sarah Cohen, a sweet old lady that reminded Boaz of his Iraqi grandmother. When we met Sarah she was in her kitchen at the back of her shop, making what she called "Jew Balls" for Friday night dinner. Further enquiries and observation led us to the conclusion that she was actually making Kubbeh, a common and very tasty Jewish-Iraqi dish, which all of Boaz's family will probably recognize as a family favourite. While she flattened the dough in a special press, she told us a the story of Cochin's Jewish community. Most of the Jews in the city emmigrated to Israel in the 50s, and all is left of this once large and prosperous community are just twelve elderly people, five men and seven women. Sarah's own children live in Ra'anana, the very same city where Boaz grew up and Kim spends about 15 hours week teaching, and they occasionally come back to visit her, bringing a special "hard meat" that she couldn't remember the name of. A few minutes (and Kubbeh balls) later she remembered that it was Naknik that they bring her - literally dried sausage (instead of freshly ground meat) that she was using to fill her Kubbeh balls as a special treat. As the community does not have a Jewish butcher any more (her husband used to do it but he died a couple of years back) they have no choice but to be vegetarians, and are mostly dependant on people visiting from Israel for their Naknik and kosher meat supply. One of the men we met later that evening (more about that later) told us how he smuggled three chickens from Israel in a little cooler when he come to visit. Our meeting with Sarah Cohen turned out to be a fortuitious meeting on both of our parts because she told us that there was a service in the Synagogue that evening. We were pleased to have a chance to see the synagogue and she was pleased, because they often miss enough men for a minyan (the requisite 10 Jewish men required for prayer) for Friday nights.

Later that evening we came back to "Jew street" in time for the evening prayer. We were very happy to see the Synagogue open this time, although the Shabbas goy at the entrance did make sure that we really were there for the service before letting us in. Once we passed the little door that led into the courtyard we were especially pleased that we had come, as this was one of the must beautiful synagogues we have ever seen. It is well-known for its tiled floor, lain with over a thousand blue and white tiles, imported from China in the seventeenth century and depicting a love affair between a Mandarin's daughter and a commoner. They are hand-made and each tile is slightly different then the next one. The Jewish community, the synagogue and especially the tiles were immortalized in Salman Rushdie's book The Moor's Last Sigh in which an old lady,(the sweeper of the synagogue) whose son has left the community after a quarrel, is able to see his every action in the changing pictures of the Chinese tiles. We had plenty of time to admire the tiles, the beautiful Belgian glass chandeliers and the old wood-carved ark, as we had to wait for almost an hour for a full Minyan. Eventually when we had three old men from the community, an Israeli businessman and his son, Boaz and two American backpackers, we had only one man missing. Eventually, one of the old men went to fetch an other guy who didn't really want to be there, but looked like he could be guilt-tripped into it.

After the service and before the Kidush we were shown around, and got to see the synagogue's ancient Torah scrolls, and their gold and silver decorations, some of which were presented to the community by the local Maharajah in the 18th century.


Tonight we are flyin back to Mumbai for the last leg of our trip. We have fond memories of the "unlimited food" and have a few more restaurants to check off on Kim's list. We also have some touristic and cultural sights to catch up on from our last visit, when we were too busy eating (or recovering from "unlimited food" meals) or shopping.

BARFI: Yet another contest! What spice ARE these pigeons eating? We spoke to many Indian people, and have also noticed in cookbooks mentions of people WASHING spices, and drying them before use.....we always thought it was strange, but after seeing them set out to dry on a burlap sack in the middle of the road, or with the pigeons nibbling at them we might consider doing this next time!

Other People Are India Culture Too!

Despite having regular internet at our disposal for the first time on our trip, we have been oddly silent over the last week. Why, you might ask, when we know that our loyal readers at home, many of whom are vacationing vicariously through our experiences, are eagerly waiting for the next installment.....it's just that we are too busy. Too busy! How can you be too busy on a vacation! Well, if you "are India culture" (as we have ascertained in prior posts that we are) then you might go to a cultural summer camp, as we have done at the Vijnana Kala Vedi. This cultural centre is dedicated to the fine arts of Kerala, and each "camper" gets to choose a primary (2 hours a day of lessons) and a secondary (1 hour lesson a day) subject. Now, obviously this won't keep you very busy, but if, like us you have chosen two main subjects and have a Mrdingam teacher who is very enthusiastic about teaching you, making you practice more then you do back home, so you might get very busy.

Our main incentive coming to the center was to learn all about the rhythms of Karnatic music - or the classical music of south India. While in Bangalore last year as well as this year we fell in love with this music and with all of the percussion instruments used, mostly to accompany singers or violinists, but also as solo instruments. The instrument we have chosen, Mridingam, is the most important percussion instrument in Karnatic music, and is made of a hollowed-out piece of jackfruit wood, with leather skin covering its two ends. In our first lesson, with Subash, our teacher, we have learned the basic alphabet of Karnatic percussions, called Konnakol. This is almost like a language with different words, used to describe different sounds you can produce: Tha, ti, tom, nam, dim, cha, tham and so on. We started with really simple exercises, in order to learn the basic strokes: Tha tika ti tika tom tika nam tika (repeat many many times), and progressed to learn complete "compositions" that took our teacher three lessons to dictate, starting like this:

nam. dim. dim. nam. tikathaka dim. dim. nam. dim. tikathaka dim. nam. tha.taka tika tatha chatathat kita taka nam. dim. dim. nam....
Below are shown (from left to right: nam, ti, tha, tom)



You'd think learning a percussion instrument would be about rhythm, but this one is much more about memory (we were expected to know these compositions by heart for the next lesson) and hand coordination. We have been practicing about two-three hours a day, but still haven't got some of it right - we'd really need a few months just to be able to accompany a simple song.

When we were still in a cool and level-headed frame of mind back home, and knowing how have a tendency to get rather excited about interesting percussion instruments, we had a discussion in which we agreed that a Mridingam would be a heavy and impractical purchase while we were traveling. Of course, when your teacher asks you after a particularly fun lesson if you plan to continue with Mridingam back home, what can you say but "do you know any good Mridingam makers?" Of course he does, and before you know it he makes an appointment for the next day at 8 am in the next city at a local maker's shop. He was kind enough to weigh it for us, and it is "maximum 8kg" (which in India means 9.5 kg).

The fun thing about this "cultural summer camp" (which actually runs all year long) is that they offer many exciting Keralan/Indian subjects such as Katakali (more on that later), wood carving, mural painting, cooking, ayurveda, yoga, 2 types of south Indian dance, Kalari (Keralan martial art), and Karnatic violin, voice and percussion. For us, however, the most fun was meeting a lot of other people who were "India Culture". Don't get us wrong, we love each others' company, but after a month and a half on the road, we only met two or three other travelers who were interesting to talk to, and we were getting eager for company. Everyone comes to India for their own personal reasons, and most of the people we met elsewhere had other interests in mind... like the two nubile Swedish girls who always wore their bikinis everywhere under their clothing in case an appropriate beach presented itself. And they were complaining that everyone seemed to treat them like porn actresses. Or the American teenager we met whose conclusion was that India was generally a "fun" place except that she hated Indian food and Indian people.

Our summer camp is full of people just as crazy about India as we are. They wear saris out and about, and were all eager to have a look at Kim's sari wrapping book (several asked to photocopy it!), they enjoy discussing the fine points of Indian musical theory and compare ragas they have learned, and it is not uncommon to hear people say "would you be interested in seeing a Bengali movie from the 50's or the latest comedy in Malayalam?". There are only about fifteen students at the center at any given time, and each one follows their own schedule according to the subjects chosen. The lessons are generally private and taught by excellent teachers. For all of you out there who are also "India culture" we can highly recommend a few weeks here.

Last week's big adventure was an all night Katakali performance at a nearby temple. Katakali is a type of Keralan dance/drama, usually based on stories about Rama and Krishna. It involves several actors dancers who act out the drama using a series of "mudras" or hand gestures, dramatic eye movements, and wild facial quivers (lips for sadness, eyebrows for love). It is highly stylized, and accompanied by two singers (who narrate the text, but are required to repeat each line as long as the actor/dancer keeps acting/dancing) and a team of percussionists whose job it is to keep the audience awake for those all night temple performances by playing extremely loud and clanging metal things together. The best thing about it, however, is the over the top costumes and the make-up that takes all together about three hours to put on. It was fun going into the "green room" to watch the actors get dressed and ready for the performance. Although the show lasts until dawn and will include three plays (each about three hours long) we only made it through until two o'clock in the morning (we had to get up for yoga the next morning), but thoroughly enjoyed it none the less.

We had originally planned to stay here for only a week, but after about two days realized that it would not be enough, and if we really wanted to get anywhere with Mridingam we would have to stay here for two months, and practice "many many times" as our teacher keeps repeating. We didn't have an extra month and three weeks, so we have settled for four more days, and sadly, will be leaving the center on Thursday. From here we are off to Cochin, and our Indian vacation is quickly drawing towards its end. We are still hoping to do one or two posts before that, so stay tuned!

Bored With Your Current Job?

Thinking about a career change? Here is the Kim and Boaz list of alternative, yet amazing professions you can pursue. We have been collecting these for a while, and it is time we shared them with you. India is brimming over with an array of occupations that you don't see so often in the west anymore - like the sign painters, tanners, basket makers, weavers and many more. India also has some unique professions, that never existed in the west, like paan wallahs, jasmine flower garland makers and coconut tree climbers - the terrestrial version of pearl divers: apparently a very dangerous job reserved for a "special" (i.e. low) caste.

We have decided to dedicate one post to some of the more amazing craftsmen we have seen on our trip. Whenever we meet anyone making something on the street we are riveted to the spot, asking questions, taking pictures and buying unnecessary, yet fun, souvenirs from them (which might turn up as prizes for bright blog readers later).


The first one we saw on our trip was the woodblock carver. This young guy was sitting outside his shop near Crawford market in Mumbai, carving the most intricate patterns on wood blocks that would later be used for both block printing fabric (mostly cotton) and for applying henna to ladies' hands. The henna application is for lazy or un-coordinated ladies only- or more often a guy on the street who does henna for a few rupees in under a minute (it takes quite a while if you do it "by hand" and is priced accordingly). He started by taking an off cut of plywood...we can write a whole other post about the people who make a living selling leftover bits and pieces of stuff... Then he drew the pattern to be carved, often according to a template that was prepared by another person in the workshop. Then he proceeded to chisel little bits of wood at a time, according to the lines previously drawn, leaving the pattern in relief. His chisels that looked very very sharp, but also were obviously made from scraps of steel: old needle files and broken drill bits, and his "hammer" looked like an old chair. Indians are so good about recycling!

Much as we would have liked to purchase something from the Ganesha maker, we restrained ourselves, knowing that a terracotta statue would simply not travel well. We encountered the Ganesha maker in Badami, he was part of the family (to whom you were introduced in the sari post) whose womenfolk gave Kim the beautiful green bangles. It was only after hanging out on their doorstep for almost 15 minutes that our glances fell upon a small clay leg lying there... there was such a big crowd of people that it was difficult to see what this may be attached to, but then we noticed that there was a statue of Ganesh sitting there, minus a leg. The man would take a piece of clay and, with the help of a small sculpting knife, would fashion individual body parts to put on the statue. The detail was amazing. We were impressed by his sculptures - they were all about 40 cm in height, and he had made several that morning, all of them lined up on a side shelf to dry. Unfortunately, these lovely pieces were later covered by painting them really bright, kitchy colours...


One of our favourite jobs was seen in Chettinad while we were pretending to be rich, and that was the Sari weaver. We met a couple who had a small "factory" composed of 70 looms in total, spread over different houses in town. In house we visited, there were three weavers and one woman winding bobbins on a bicycle wheel. The looms were amazing, very simply made of bamboo poles. The women sat in chairs set into the floor, probably because it is easier to make a hole in the floor than to build a table for the entire loom, the looms were easily 6 meters long- about the length of a sari, come to think of it. One woman is able to weave a sari in 2 days, 4 if it is complicated with checks or patterns. An additional morning or so is also needed to set up the loom with all of the threads. Because the visit was organized through our expensive hotel the saris were unfortunately priced accordingly, and we did not end up getting any, but don't worry, we did end up getting some table cloths - the stuff was simply irresistible.

Boaz fell in love with the bead turner. If you described what this man was doing and we hadn't seen it for ourselves we would have told you that this is impossible. This man, who we saw in Panderpur during the mela, was making beads for rosary-type prayer necklaces. He used really soft wood, apparently with a hollow center. He drilled a hole through a little piece of this wood with a long needle, and then set it between the centers of a very simple little "lathe", basically a small metal frame. With his right hand he used a bow which was wound around the piece of wood, and while it was turning, he was using a chisel with his left to round and shape 5-6 beads at a time. Then he took them off, cut them into individual pieces and strung them. The beads he made were tiny - about 5 mm in diameter, and you needed at least a hundred of them for one of these necklaces.

BARFI: Although there were some pretty good attempts, no one answered last post's quetion correctly. The strange plant in question, of which we have only shown you the flower, has an edible root. It is GINGER... we would have never guessed either if our guide hadn't told us.

Floating Around the Keralan Backwaters

"Kerala - God's Own Country" claim billboards on every roadside here, with what seems to be, at first, a slight exaggeration. However, after traveling around this state for the last week now, we can attest that there is some truth in the claim. With its abundance of water, delicious food, butterflies the size of hummingbirds, and coconut trees as far as the eye can see, this does seem to be as close to a paradise on earth as it gets. The people, too, are the nicest we have met so far and best of all: Autorickshaw drivers ask for a decent price and never have to be bargained down!

Our goal in coming to Kerala, apart from all those attractions recently mentioned, was to find some nice homestays, meet some families, experience their lifestyles and (of course) their cooking, and to collect as many tasty recipes as possible for future reference. Kerala has an extensive network of "homestays" which is sometimes a bit of a catchall expression ranging from 'you will sleep in the spare room and help the kids with their English homework' to ' resort accommodation involving only one or two cottages run by a family'. Obviously we were more interested in the first option, but the difficulty was extracting the information from the guy at the tourist office, from whom getting coherent suggestions was as difficult as pulling teeth from a chicken. For the entire region, he told us, there were only 3 homestays....well maybe there were more, but until the tourist ferry started running in the "season" there was absolutely NO way to get there. As if all of the inhabitants are stranded in their houses until enough tourists come. After a long discussion, and a visit to the "rival" government stall (we are not sure how that works, but there seems to be more than one official tourist office in town) we managed to come up with three nice-sounding options.

We first stayed near Kollam, just a few stops on the PUBLIC ferry away from town, in a very quiet village where we entertained ourselves by relaxing and doing nothing (a first on this trip), taking a romantic sunset paddle (there was some one who did this paddling) seeing Chinese fishing nets, and having one of the best sleeps ever, with little fireflies flitting about the room. From there, we took the PUBLIC ferry to Monro island, a location apparently only accessible to tourists by 300 rupee rickshaw rides, and where it is "not safe to spend the night", according to our host at the first homestay. Thus forewarned, we ventured into the unknown, only to be dumped two hours later at the end of the ferry line, where we were supposed to meet someone from the homestay (who, naturally, wasn't there). In the meantime, we followed some other people across the railway tracks (yes, there is also a train) to a TODDY SHOP (read: den of iniquity). A toddy shop is an infamous Keralan invention, where people (read: men) go to eat very delicious and spicy fiery fish curry with cassava, all the spiciness being an excuse to drink toddy. Toddy is a fermented coconut palm sap beverage, in the morning it is like juice and as the day progresses it gets steadily more alcoholic. It doesn't keep for more than a day. We had a very small glass at around 3 o'clock and it seemed to be as strong as wine, with a sweet yet fermented taste. We could easily become regulars at this kind of place on the edge of the water, so peaceful and with much better wildlife than in bars back home (see photo below). Saving us from too much Toddy, someone eventually turned up to collect us and bring us to our homestay.

This was very much a family homestay, with two very sweet children who spoke English rather well and used our interest in cooking to further their interest in getting their mother and grandmother to make their favourite foods. We spent an almost sleepless night on a small sagging mattress and then went on a morning canoe trip where we got to see many local coconut-based industries such as coconut picking, coir rope making and coconut drying. New career prospects were also in the making as Kim tried her her hand at coir winding (for woman only) and Boaz learned how to canoe with a pole (there is a paddle, but that's only for when it is deep).

We continued on by bus to our current boat-accessible only homestay, which is definitely the nirvana we have been seeking. Facing the broad canal that connect Allepy and Kollam, among tall swaying trees, it is a quiet, remote retreat, as the name Riverside Retreat suggests. We got a small "cottage", a spacious bungalow made of wood, a few meters away from the main house. There were two main attractions: first, the bed is exactly twice as big as the one in the last homestay, and second, at the back there is a little secretive shower, outdoors, under a banana tree. We have tea and delicious meals overlooking the river, watching the canoes and fishermen go by, and if that gets too stressful, there is also the possibility of an ayurvedic massage at a real ayurvedic "hospital" where you start by having a consultation with a doctor, and then are vigourously massaged by two people and about 3 liters of herb infused coconut oil. This is not the sleazy and cheesy faux ayurvedic massage that people try to lure you into in other touristic locations, but actually requires an appointment! The massage table is made from wood with edges running around to catch all that oil (and to catch you, it gets pretty slippery). It is probably one of the best oiled pieces of furniture we have ever seen! It was followed by a visit to the steam box (it looks more like a medieval torture kit, but was actually fun).

Only a few days remain in our little backwater idyll, and then it is off to our "Keralan daycamp", but first we are going to go to Allepy for the yearly "Neru trophy snake boat race" from which we are hoping to report back to the faithful readers of this blog.

Barfi: Another contest with fun prizes! Who can tell us what this plant is (hint: it is edible).

South Indian Breakfast: Part I, the Parota Addiction

While waiting for the parcel service dude to open his shop on this fine Sunday morning in Trivandrum (he only opens at noon, and we got there at 9:30), and as our we got stuck checking out of the hotel at 8:00, we decided to write a short post. After having a delicious breakfast at the Ariya Nivas we decided to tell you about some of our favourite breakfast foods. There are just too many for one post, so we have decided to break it up into segments.

One of our all-time favourites are PAROTAS. These are not to be confused with north Indian Parathas, which are also very tasty, and usually are like stuffed chapattis. The Parotas of the south, however, are flaky, delightful, griddled flat breads. We already discovered them last year in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and to tell you the truth, we became so addicted that we decided to attempt them at home. Many Saturday mornings were spent with various recipes downloaded from the internet, attempting to whip up parotas with limited success. Usually, we would start at around breakfast time, it would take us until lunch time (and half a bottle of vegetable oil) and we would devour them so greedily that we would be too full to contemplate dinner. But still, the result was about 6 parotas, flatter than we wanted, slightly singed rather than golden, and all this after two hours of fiddling with the dough and saying words we aren't going to write down here.

So how does Parota magic happen? we were very happy to run into a local parota master in Hampi and and tried to extract some of the trade secrets through careful observation and many photographs. So here is how the pros do it: First you need the dough. We are not sure what's in it - probably flour, oil and water, we are yet to find out the exact proportions, but this guy's dough looked very smooth and flexible. You divide your dough into little balls (the master did it by squeezing the dough between his thumb and forefinger, into little, perfect, mushroom-shaped balls). Then, you whack it against a very well oiled table (master had a shining black marble slab) to an oval shape, so thin you could read your morning paper through it (at home it took Boaz about half an hour with the rolling pin). Then you origami it into a fan, followed by a snail and set it aside. It took the Master about 10 seconds (we timed it) to form those little snails, but it took us more than ten minutes to do this back home... Then, you get your helper to roll them out flat and place them on the griddle (the helper not yet being worthy of whacking and shaping). Once they have been browned to golden perfection on both sides, you set them aside in a stack, and wait for the master to do the final touch. The most important part about making the layers separate is to clap the whole stack between your two hands (sideways). This trick takes years to perfect, and hence only the true master should do it. They are then served with the "curry" of your choice, usually sambar, and sometimes egg curry but always coconut chutney. A standard order is two parotas, but we are often tempted to be greedy and get a third just because they are so tasty!

BARFI: This barfi is about jewellery. In the west, jewelry is considered frivolous and decorative, but here in India, jewellery is like a women's savings account. Everyone is all decked out with solid gold earrings, nose rings, necklaces and bangles for the most mundane of everyday tasks (for example, street sweeping and cement mixing). After finding out how much gold costs, we looked at these women in a whole new way. On a hot day, after a big lunch we decided to relax in an A/C jewelers shop and look at some silver jewelry (much to everyone's amusement since no one over 12 wears silver jewelry here). This made us realize something else about Indian jewelry: they are a bit like IKEA furniture: you can always add an other little component as your husband grows richer. You start with studs, and then you can add little bits to dangle from them, you can also attach thin chains to loop over your ear, to connect to your nose ring, hairpin, or husband... you get the picture. We found several very nice earrings and happily took them home. The closings were not the "butterfly" backings found in the west, but rather the earrings actually screwed shut. I guess that it makes sense if it is your life savings and is the essential component of this modular system. At home we realized that we had a small problem. Because Kim wears mostly very small earrings, with very small posts, the new earrings had posts 3 times the size of the old ones and were not, with any amount of pushing or turning, going to go in. How embarrassing. We might try to find an intermediate thickness and "stretch" the holes a bit. In the meantime, feeling like sissies, we saw an older, possibly tribal, woman on the bus who certainly did not have this problem at all....in fact she had about a kilo of solid gold nuts and bolts (quite literally, we kid you not) strung through her earlobes. And her holes were about 10 cm long.

Congratulations to googling queens Genevieve and Ghislaine, who tied in the contest to find out about the turmeric paste on the face! Genevieve will be the proud recipient of a brass key hanger and Ghislaine wins a hand carved wood-block for henna application. Turmeric everyone can get back home - and as we read, it will certainly make you more beautiful!