My World of Food and Travel

How heartless and artless of me to wish everyone a happy Durga Puja on the day it is coming to an end. But then, I was busy soaking in the festivities the last few days and hardly had time to log in and wish everyone. The husband, meanwhile, had gone on an emotional trip down the lane while remembering his Durga Puja days in his hometown. Yet he managed to click these pictures when we went kind of pandal-hopping in Bangalore. Unfortunately, we forgot to carry our camera on the day we visited the pandals in Indiranagar and Koramagala. We also missed clicking pictures of that amazing dinner we had at Bangaliana. Too bad you can't see them etched on our minds. Here are a few images of Durga Devi in all her splendor: Durga Puja at Banaswadi First ever held Durga Puja by Assam Society  Durga Puja by Bengalee Association at RBNAMS Ground Let's all wish for a fantastic year ahead and I am sure Goddess Durga will grant us that simple wish!

The mutton korma and pulao that you see in the picture above? It could well have been my Durga Puja dinner but then….yeah, that was my birthday dinner. Cooked by the husband, from start to finish, all by himself. I had grown up with mutton curry and pulao as permanent fixture on my birthday menu for years and so he quietly decided to treat me to a typical mangxo-pulao dinner. Since mutton/goat meat/lamb had almost disappeared from our lives, it was really a big treat for me on my birthday! As a matter of fact, the husband had asked me how I wanted to have the mutton - fried or with a little gravy or with a runny curry. I felt so grand! Finally, I settled on middle-way and decided to have mutton with a little gravy. This goes so well with pulao or even lusi (puri) and it had been ages since I had a home-cooked version of it. The husband, however, wanted to make the dish a little ‘ hatke ’ from the mutton curry that we generally make with onions and tomatoes. He browsed through ...

Let me wish all of you out there a very happy Durga Puja! My memories of Durga Puja, strangely, are quite recent. I was brought up in a tiger sanctuary where Kali Puja was more celebrated than Durga Puja. Even after we shifted to Guwahati, I could not attach myself to Durga Puja as fervently as our neighbours and my friends. Sis and I would grudgingly go to the local puja pandal to ask the Goddess’s blessings and then wait for the longest time for the ‘bhog’ to start. All the aunties I knew would be present in their finery and would look very busy, some distributing prasad, others flowers. Once or twice they would stop by and ask how our studies were going along. The microphones would be blasting with the panditji’s mantras and directions to his assistants, ‘now bring me this’, ‘throw away that’ and even the cursory ‘ki khobor (how are you)’ to an acquaintance in the middle of his chanting.  And then the serpentine queue for the bhog. Undoubtedly, that calls for a lot ...