Author: manuscrypts

  • Biryani Pundits

    Sometime back, while on a Natural Ice Creams (map) expedition in Koramangala, we found that an iconic Koramangala food spot had gone missing – Sonakshi Sharma’s Family Restaurant. In its place was Biryani Pundits. Though we did visit soon after, missing out on the Biryani among other small things, I decided to wait for an official review in Bangalore Mirror before I published it here.

    It’s located in Koramangala 1st Block, near Sichuan. Usually it’s easier to park in Indiranagar and take an auto, but you can try your luck in one of the side lanes. You’ll have to climb a flight of narrow stairs to get to the seating area.

    Take a look at the menu on Zomato. If you’re up to it, you can mix and match with the Chettinad, Tandoori, North Indian, and Biryani that’s available. There are also value-for-money priced, ‘legit’ combinations available. As you’ll notice, the menu doesn’t have a starter section, but there are more than enough items in the ‘Fry’ ‘Tandoori’, and ‘Daily Specials’ section that can serve the purpose quite well. In fact, with Quail 65, Prawn Sukka, Crab Soup, Fish Cutlets etc listed among the day’s specials, there was much lip smacking. Unfortunately, none of the items in that section were available, and that left about a dozen ‘Fry’ and a few Tandoori options.

    The Chicken 65 was the pick of the starters, boneless, succulent and quite spicy thanks to a chilli paste. The Lamb Liver Liver Fry was just a shade below, and though the masala couldn’t be termed spicy, it had a flavourful zing to it, helped by the green chillies. The Pundits Special Chicken just about passed muster with a masala that seemed to be a ‘ghee roast’ wannabe, but without the ghee or the texture. The Paneer Chilly turned out to be a disappointment and the least spicy, with the Paneer in a guest appearance and corn flour and capsicums hogging the limelight. Though the chicken was tender, the Chicken Tikka Boneless was quite bland, despite peppery attempts.

    The Chicken Wheat Parotta Koththu is quite famous as a street food and Biryani Pundits does a good job with it, not being stingy with the chicken, and with a slightly spicy and consistent masala featuring ginger garlic, chilli and turmeric flavours. The Lamb version was not so fortunate with the masala, as some portions were too salty. But here too, it needs to be mentioned that there was an ample proportion of meat. One of the drawbacks of an enthusiastic service was that they brought the entire set of dishes at the same time, despite the order having things like appams , Wheat Parottas and Biryani, which really need to be served hot. I expected the egg appam to have an unbroken yolk, but that was not to be. However, it did a good job otherwise, making a good combination with the Lamb Curry , which was the only item that redeemed the main course. The meat was tender and juicy and the gravy, while not overly spicy, had a piquancy about it that made it a favourite. The Chicken Pepper Masala was a also quite a dud, with no sign of the pepper. The Wheat Kerala Parotta obviously lacks the fluffiness of its maida counterpart, but is still a safe bet. The same can’t be said of the Veg Lbabdar, which somehow tasted all wrong. An extremely dominant tangy flavour made the dish quite unpalatable. Much was expected from the Special dosa, priced higher than the egg appam, but it was just a roast dosa, which could barely hold on to its crispiness. But the biggest disappointment was the Pundits Special Chicken Biryani, special because it used kababs, but the masala made only a fleeting appearance. Also mildly irritating was having to ask for the raita and the brinjal chutney that were supposed to be given along with the dish. And when they did appear, it didn’t make much of a difference either. The other disappointing aspect was the non availability of dishes. To feature items like ‘Lamb Head Masala’ and ‘Quail Biryani’ on the menu and not have it is gross injustice, and enough to convert carnivores into cannibals.

    The menu does not have a dedicated section for desserts either, and our only hope was the ‘traditional sweet’ promised with the biryani. That turned out to be another item we had to ask for, and when it did arrive, the jamun was a tad too sweet and syrupy.

    For a restaurant that has Biryani in its name, Biryani Pundits have quite a way to go before their offering delivers some dum.  Some of their dishes are quite good, but the unavailability of items doesn’t really help their cause.

    Biryani Pundits, No:1018, 1st Main, 80 feet Road, Koramangala. Ph: 8880050001

  • Timestamps

    Thanks to the weird processes of online tax filing, I had to go to a real post office sometime back, and realised that I hadn’t visited one in at least 8 years! That’s the time we have been in Bangalore. I clearly remember frequenting the one near home in Cochin, and the one in Goa, housed within the GIM building. But 8 years is a long time. The Rs.5/ Rajiv Gandhi stamp was something I’d never seen before and told me how out of touch I was.

    Like many others, I too used to list ‘collecting stamps’ as a hobby. I remember the last time I was in Cochin, I fished out the briefcase that has been the caretaker of my stamp collection for many many years now. The collection had a much humbler residence in its early days, when I was in school. I only realised later that Dad had an interest too and can now imagine how horrified he must have been when he found that foreign stamps could be bought from stationery stores. Fake stuff, but good enough for ‘exchanges’ at school.

    The circular Singapore one, triangles, ‘diamonds’, Malaysian butterflies. There was even a ‘3D’ one, from Bhutan apparently! The circle, a few triangles and the butterflies were original, I think. 🙂 Later, a grand uncle, who could actually lay claim to serious philately gave me his entire collection which included a lot of first day covers and half/1 anna (currency not hazare) envelopes. Priceless stuff!

    That’s around the time when dad gave me the briefcase, though I can’t remember why. It used to be the one he carried to office, and was special because it had a number lock! Yes, it was fancy then. Along with albums, the entire collection had a new home. After a few years, it was ignored, thanks to the many other interests that made their way into life. Many years later, I chanced upon the briefcase, and realised I had forgotten the code! I somehow remembered it, but became paranoid about it and gave the briefcase a makeover, one that can now be described as a Ghajini theme. All over its wonderful brown exterior, the number now exists – in various sizes and colours, courtesy the magic of permanent markers!

    And that’s how I found it in the room, coated with a layer of dust, and safe behind a bookshelf, housing those tiny pieces of paper that allowed messages to travel over distances. Mobiles, email, social networks and evolution of self and others, all have contributed to the demise of a snail mail culture that included among other things, pen friends and chain mails, a glimpse of the person through his/her handwriting and the sheer joy of a mail waiting for you when you reach home.

    And with that, perhaps a related hobby is also forced to breathe its last. This generation will probably be among the last to know of post offices and a hobby called philately. I wonder what the legacy of the stamp collection is. Maybe the briefcase is just like the other baggage that I own, a friend who reminds me of an earlier era, whose story and context end with me.

    until next time, a briefcase history

  • Chasing the Monk’s Shadow

    Mishi Saran

    There are some books that one wishes went on forever, for the vicarious experience offered is incredible. This is one of those. Long after the pages have been completed, the journey promises to stay in my mind.

    It is now exactly a decade since Mishi Saran started on her journey – to follow a monk who had himself made a journey of over 10000 miles, 14 centuries before her time. Xuanzang, who I last met in my history text from school, the monk with the neat backpack.

    The book hooked me right from the time the author described how she found a purpose – “an Indian woman with a Chinese craze, a Chinese monk with an Indian obsession, we had the same schizophrenia, the monk and I. It seemed logical to take the same road.”

    The best journeys are those which traverse time and space in one stroke, and that’s exactly what this book does. Though in many ways, it could be described as a travelogue too, that would be utterly unfair. It is very much a personal journey for the author, a search for her roots, and identity.

    As Mishi Saran travels across China and Central Asia, following Xuanzang’s path, her vivid prose blurs the boundaries that have been created in the modern era, and its easy to see the influence of ancient civilisations and regimes influence art, architecture, language, customs and thus life itself. And at the edges, where its not just cultures that collide, but religions too, as they are reshaped or recast in different moulds – Islam, Buddhism, Sufism…

    The writing style forces one to make the journey with her, and I could see that there were actually three journeys unraveling simultaneously – the author, the monk, and the Buddha himself. All of them journeys with a purpose.

    And amidst all the eloquence, it has obviously been a journey that required grit and courage.. And luck, which many a time failed the author. From places where children going to school needed visas and permits, to the posturing of a few contemporary students of Buddhism, to the origins of words that are still used in common parlance, and characters which seem to leap out of history pages – Ashoka, Kanishka, Chandragupta, the pages hold in them, tangential journeys for the reader.

    The last part of the book, where the author gets to (almost) finally visit the territories crossed by Xuanzang in Afghanistan, is written a month before 9/11, and gives us a gripping account of Afghanistan under the Taliban, with glimpses of people who have perhaps yet to find peace. “I believed him. It was hard not to believe a man when you were standing in front of his blown-up home and staring at the ruins of his life. Whatever the story was, this was his truth.” Unlike fiction, one cannot console the self that the person and his story are imaginary. The last part of the journey does not add a lot with respect to the purpose of the book, but it’s a part that I’m glad the author chose to add here.

    As a reader, I could relate to the author’s words in the last page “…I understood less, not more…. I had acquired this sadness”, and that is what makes this book one of the best I’ve read.

  • Fake my life

    Funny Confession Ecard: I am no match for the perfect, carefully crafted online version of myself.The perfect life, that’s what I called it – the phenomenon that has spread across the two social networks I frequent. Facebook Photos is nothing new and has come up here as a subject for discussion earlier. But its rise has been meteoric, just like the social network. The best vacations, the coolest friends, the hottest parties, the snazziest gadgets, seems everyone can haz it. 🙂 Twitter is not far behind. People, almost like brands, out to show their best side. Made for Facebook/Made for Twitter/ Lies of Life, call it what you will. Of course condolences would pour in if someone had a distressing update. Either outrage against the wrongdoer if any, or at least a +1 to show solidarity. Unfollow, unfriend you’d say, but these are not bad people, they just have a perfect life. 🙂 Unfortunately, the networks work as emotion aggregators too, forcing me to vent once in a while. [image source Check it out for more awesomeness :)] And yes, I generalise. 🙂

    I have wondered about the motivation. Maybe we like to share happiness more than sadness by default. Maybe sadness is a private thing we choose only to share with dear ones. (do you think there’s a social network idea there? A mutant version of Path) Maybe the algorithms ensure I see only the happy ones. Or maybe it’s indeed true that our vanity stops us from showing that we have been humbled, beaten, saddened by a human hand or a twist of fate.

    A few minutes after I tweeted about the perfect life, I got a message on the blog (deleted now) from an old dear friend S, who had gotten in touch after quite a while. In the long years before a virtual home, when a real diary was a lifesaver, hers would probably be the name that was mentioned most, before the rise of the  thenceforth omnipresent D. 🙂

    S isn’t on twitter, so she would have no idea of the coincidence. She was happy about the progress I was making, doing the things I love to do and generally having fun. And that led me to wonder if I, in my own limited way, was also feeding the perfect life network. So here’s setting the record straight. In case you see my vacation photos, restaurant visits and general attempts at humour and think that the story begins and ends there, you couldn’t be further from the truth.

    As many of my posts would indicate, I have multiple ‘missed life crises’ – singer, author, theatre actor, h3ll, even cricketer, and perhaps a few more too, all skills I have either displayed to some degree or think I possess. 🙂 I think way too much for my own good and am forever irritated at the inequity of life (in terms of those more unfortunate) and not being able to do much about it. I am constantly trying to shed baggage and sometimes failing miserably. My feelings of insecurity would be legend if they were a published work. Thankfully D exists. There is more, but that’s enough fun at my expense. The silver lining is that I’m learning through it all. Meanwhile, all I’m trying to say is that the grass on the other side is probably photoshopped. If it’s not, they’ve probably worked hard to make it this way. And we can too, if we try. Please smile now, and mean it. Or I’ll have to ask you to Like the post 😉

    until next time, open source happiness

    PS: It was only recently that I gave off my fakemytrip.com domain to mygola. I had bought it thanks to an irritating status on FB, and had a 4sq based idea around it. 😀

  • Adaa

    Koramangala’s autumn cleaning has meant that we have a new set of restaurants. Adaa is one of them, and has the advantage of already being famous in Marathahalli, one of those recent upstart villages that is trying to give Koramangala’s sheer number of restaurants a run for its money. 😉

    A social visit earlier meant that the tummy was half-full, so we decided to walk to Adaa. This is on one of Koramangala’s food streets, same as Kobe, Empire, Sufi etc. You’ll see it on the left turn (corner) just after the Jyoti Nivas College left, opposite what used to be Paramount. (and now seems to be on its way to becoming Naushad’s The Big Chef) I think Adaa has taken Desmond’s spot. Thanks to the parking lot near Empire, you should be able to easily find a place.

    Adaa is a compact restaurant with a warm yet classy interior, and comfortable seating options. The menu informs you that it is part of the same group that owns Treat in Indiranagar. That used to be one of our favourite haunts during our brief stay in Bangalore East. The usage of green in the menu and logo is also a good hint to the connection, on hindsight.

    We started off proceedings with a Bukni Kabab. ‘Bukni’ seems to be a powdered masala with a dominant red chillies flavour. This indeed turned out to be a hot, fiery seekh kabab with an excellent texture, complemented well by the lemony, tangy onions. We washed it down with a thick, sweet lassi, that proved to be a good investment too. For the main course, we ordered a Murg Raada and a Magaz, and to go with that, a Kheema Kulcha, a Lal Mirch Paratha and later a, Hari Mirch Roti.

    The chicken dish seems to have a back story too. Apparently, it was created in a dhaba near the Road Transport Authority in Old Delhi. The mince and meat combo was good but though that made it a thick dish, the gravy itself proved a bit watery and bland. The Magaz, which is goat’s brain in a spiced masala was a much better dish, in spite of being slightly inconsistent with its flavours. There were spikes of salt and tanginess, but that didn’t take away much. The roti, paratha and kulcha did their jobs well, though we expected more spicy versions.

    There were dessert options, but we were too stuffed. There was this cool packaged ‘paan’ that came with the bill. First time I have seen this, and it’s quite good. So good that we ate two each and took the remaining with us. 😀 The bill came to just over Rs.900, including a 10% service charge. The service is courteous and attentive. In short, quite worth a visit, if you’re in Koramangala and would like some North Indian fare.

    Adaa, 48, 4B Cross, 5th Block, Koramangala Ph: 41103144/55

    A review published in Bangalore Mirror later