Chef Mujibur-Rehman has prepared a special menu to introduce Mumbaikars to the royal cuisine of the erstwhile state of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.
After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the change in laws not only forced the rebel rulers out of their courts but also created turmoil in royal kitchens. “The culinary journey of the state of Rampur started over a century ago in 1774, when Faizullah Khan founded the state. But it took a more glorious turn when these royal cooks took refuge in Rampur.
They used local ingredients to prepare several marvellous dishes,” shares chef Mujibur-Rehman, who has prepared a special menu to introduce Mumbaikars to Rampuri cuisine.
From sandalwood powder, kebab chini (cubed or tailed pepper), badiyan (fried urad dal preparation), melon seeds, yellow sugar to much more; these ingredients are common to this date. Rampuri cuisine also uses plenty of onion (raw and fried) and the mutton is mostly from the castrated male goat.
Mystical Rampur
Keeping the wide array of ingredients aside, Rampur’s water is believed to add that something special to the exquisite cuisine. In fact, Taar Korma, says chef Rehman, “is believed to taste good only when cooked in Rampur’s water; the belief is so entrenched that people order water from Rampur to cook it.”
Innovation on their palate
Chef Rehman adds that dishes like Nadru ke Shami and Kathal ki Biryani; desserts like Shimla Mirch ka Halwa and Aloe Vera ka Halva — and many more come from Rampur. Gosht ka Halwa, a mind-boggling, lamb dish that resembles Suji Ka Halwa in taste and texture owes its origin to Rampur.
The royal cooks also excelled in methods of preparing extravagant dishes like the multi-layered Biryani and introduced many vegetarian kebab preparations — Nafis Dal Shami Kebabs. “The khansamas use a special paste of raw pineapple to grill or roast. This makes the seekh kebabs delicate and soft,” he shares.
Secrecy killed the heritage
Chef Rehman rues that most of the Rampuri culinary heritage is now lost. “We know only 1/4th of the dishes prepared in the royal kitchen of Rampur. Most of the khansamas never shared the recipes with anyone. Some of the original preparations like Anar ka Pulav are also lost. Even today, they are very reluctant to share. But I hope slowly, they will reveal the secrets,” he optimistically adds.
A KG student of a posh Ghatkopar school in Mumbai, would be forced to accompany two men to a hotel room, where he had to 'hug and kiss uncles'; crime was discovered after several months, when a doctor spotted injuries.
Worried parents who have been pushing for female attendants on school buses have something new to be concerned about. Police have arrested the attendant of a bus at a well-known school in Ghatkopar for supplying a six-year-old student to paedophiles.
The traumatised boy who was subjected to torment for several months finally opened up to his parents, after which the local physician discovered injuries on his private parts. “We have arrested the bus attendant, Farha Sheikh and she has been remanded in police custody.
Farha has been denying all the allegations but we are trying to get the truth out of her,” confirmed Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay Kulkarni of (Zone V). In her statement, the mother of the Senior KG student revealed that Farha forced her son to accompany the main accused identified as Prithvi and Kaif to a hotel room in Andheri, where he was sexually assaulted.
In wrong hands
The six-year-old boy’s mother used to drop him to a nearby creche every morning at 8 am on her way to work. A woman in the creche had been appointed to wait at the bus stop with the boy, make sure that he had safely boarded it, and pick him up from the same stop later after school hours. The boy’s mother would then pick him up late in the evening on her way home from work. DCP Kulkarni said, “Though we have arrested the attendant, there is no further evidence on the accused. The victim’s mother is also unaware of them.”
Trauma
A few weeks ago, the boy started suffering from ill health and started showing extreme reluctance to go to school. When his mother tried to cajole him to return to his classes, he complained to her about ‘uncles’ who was forcing him to ‘hug and kiss’ him. On March 18, the boy started screaming in his sleep, begging for mercy and asking an imagined assailant to leave him alone, his mother said in her statement.
Sexually assaulted
Worried, his parents rushed the child to a family physician, who confirmed that he had been sexually assaulted. The couple then approached the VB Nagar police station and registered a case with them. Kulkarni added, “We are inquiring with the school and bus officials, who are on contract with the school and the crèche. We are probing the matter from each and every angle.”
Asked whether the remaining two accused are the driver or the cleaner of any other bus providing service to the school, Kulkarni said, “There are six buses serving the school, but no one of the name of Prithvi or Kaif works on them.” The investigators are now verifying with the school records as well as the creche staff for leads.
The three accused have been booked under Section 377 (unnatural offence), 363 (kidnapping), 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance) while the arrested accused Farha was presented in court and has been remanded in police custody.
Penalty for silence
Schools have been notified that under section 21 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, any person who fails to inform the police about incidents of child sexual assault faces 6 months in prison, or a fine, or both.
Feb 20: A bus cleaner kissed a 3-year-old girl and touched her inappropriately when she was alone in the bus while she was being dropped home
Jan 18: A 35-year-old conductor sexually assaulted a 4-year-old nursery student of a premier Juhu school on a moving school bus
Contractors at Shivaji Park, Chandanwadi crematoriums were found selling logs, meant to be given free for last rites, to those looking for wood for Holika dahan.
The dead can wait; Holi can’t if you had dropped by at the Shivaji Park Crematorium in Dadar (W) or Chandanwadi Crematorium in Kalbadevi on Monday, you wouldn’t have had any trouble believing this.
Piles of wood, meant to be given free of cost for last rites, were sold at a profit in these funeral homes, for Holika dahan the burning of evil on the night before Holi. While the price was Rs 12 for a kilogram at Shivaji Park, Rs 8 per kg was the going rate at Chandanwadi. Incidentally, BMC pays contractors Rs 6 per kg of wood at the end of the month, based on the data of bodies cremated.
The scene outside Shivaji Park crematorium on Monday. Workers are seen weighing the wood and then loading them on waiting taxis
On an average, every cremation requires about 300 kg of wood. Dadar resident and active member of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Shrikant Bhoite alleged, “Wood is being sold like this for the past 6-7 years as contractors illegally make profits. The taxpayers’ money is being misused, since BMC commenced the free cremation facility some time ago.”
The MNS worker added, “I will complain about this to the mayor and municipal commissioner as such transgression is not possible without the involvement of BMC officials.” The civic body has contracted Tulsidas Premchand and Co, who supply wood for Shivaji Park crematorium.
One of the proprietors of the firm, identified as Anand, admitted to INN about selling of the wood. “We had no option but to sell, otherwise people would have taken the wood forcibly,” he said. Similar were the goings-on at Chandanwadi Crematorium. Shiv Sena leader Pandurang Sakpal said, “The crematorium is run by a private trust, but employees sold the wood the night before Holi.”
Wood being sold for Holi at Chandanwadi Crematorium and at Shivaji Park Crematorium on Monday
All BMC-run crematoriums are under the jurisdiction of the civic health department. When contacted, Dr Arun Bamne, BMC executive health officer, said, “We will investigate the matter.” He also claimed that no civic employee was involved in the malpractice and the contractors were at fault. “We pay the wood supplier at the end of every month on the basis of bodies cremated,” he explained.
Green Crematorium
BMC has made a provision of Rs 4.94 crore for ‘Green Crematorium’. The basic idea is to promote piped natural gas (PNG) cremation instead of wood-based ones. The civic body has also set aside Rs 2 crore for beautification of city crematoriums.
Rs 6
The price per kg that BMC pays the contractors who supply wood for last rites
Rs 12
The price per kg that contractors were charging buyers at Shivaji Park crematorium; Rs 8 was the price at Chandanwadi crematorium
Succulent morsels of meat marinated with spices and skewer-grilled in hearths or ovens have tantalised the taste buds of food lovers for centuries.
These define the cuisine of the frontiers - recalling memories of rugged deserts of Asia and Europe, the march of Islam and large armies cooking meat in open fires.
"Kebab", or the way the meat turns, is derived from Arabic word "cabob", a distortion of the Aramaic word "kabbaba" or "kababu" meaning to burn or char, says Monish Gujral, who manages the Moti Mahal chain of restaurants and has put together around 100 kebab recipes from across the world in a new book "On the Kebab Trail" (Penguin India), tracing the origin of the dish in Turkey and its journey to the Indian sub-continent.
Thirteenth century Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta records that kebabs were served in royal houses and even enjoyed by commoners for breakfast with naan.
In India, the history of the kebab is marked by rivalries between chefs over recipes, ingredients and whims of kings, who wanted their meat cooked in particular ways.
Gujral says kebabs over the years have captured the imagination of the world and become a symbol of fine dining.
"People are making kebabs at home. It is a family meal because kebabs are healthy since they can be cooked with moderate oil. They are easy to make because they involve two processes -- marination and grilling -- with both vegetable and meat alternatives," Gujral told INN.
With grilling meat becoming part of household cooking ritual, attention has returned to kebabs again, he said.
Gujral, a restaurateur, award-winning writer, cook and grandson of Kundan Lal Gujral, creator of the "tandoori chicken", is just back from a kebab odyssey around the world to discover new delicacies.
"I decided to compile kebab recipes because there is no book about kebabs from around the world. Every country has its own version of the kebab -- marinated meat with spices and ingredients specific to the country and its culinary habits.
"In India, as laymen, we have heard about regional kebab, but never heard of Turkish, Moroccan or Lebanese versions," Gujral said.
The kebab was invented by a chance shortage of meat, he said.
"In ancient Turkey, invading armies were in short supply of kitchen hearth fuel. They skewered the meat in open fields. The soldiers pierced the meat with swords and charbroiled them in open fires. These kebabs were nomadic - basic grilled meat which later evolved into Turkish kebabs.
"The origin of the meat kebab was also associated with the fact that in those countries, there were fewer vegetables and more animals. And the soldiers had to be fed," he said.
The Turks brought the aromatic kebabs to India, Gujral said. "And my grandfather created the tandoori kebab."
Gujral says the Indian palate is compatible with "barra kebab" (large chunks of marinated and cooked meat), "chicken tikka kebab", "tandoori chicken kebab" and "tandoori aloo" - skewered spiced potatoes.
"But my favourite is the 'murgmalai kebab' and 'paneer tikka'," Gujral said.
The kebab trail took the chef across the Middle East and Turkey, where two "unusual kebab recipes" lingered on his palate.
"I ate the traditional 'testi' or claypot 'kebab' in Turkey cooked in sealed earthen clay pots at 800 degrees Celsius for 12 hours with mutton, tomatoes, pepper and ginger. The pots are split open once the kebabs are ready," Gujral said.
"The 'bachivan kebabi', another Turkish wonder, with fresh garden vegetables was beautifully balanced and cooked with mutton, black pepper, olive oil and onions and eaten with Turkish 'lavash' - a thin flat bread," he said.
Gujral's book lists recipes of nearly 100 kebabs from the Middle East, India, Africa and Southeast Asia, where meat is staple food with grain bread and rice.
Australia’s tourism industry yesterday resurrected its hugely popular “Best Jobs in the World” campaign, offering a chance to become a “Chief Funster,” “Taste Master” or “Outback Adventurer.”
The marketing push is targeting the youth segment, which contributes Aus$ 12 billion ($ 12.2 billion) annually in tourism spending and delivers nearly 1.6 million, or 26 percent, of Australia’s international arrivals. It follows a similar campaign that attracted huge interest in 2009, won by Briton Ben Southall, who was paid to become caretaker on a picture-perfect island on the Great Barrier Reef for six months.
This time six “best” jobs are on offer — each in a different Australian state and each coming with a six-month salary package worth Aus$ 100,000.
It is open to travelers aged between 18 and 30, with particular focus on international markets eligible for Australian working holiday visas including Britain, the United States, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
Hopefuls have until April 10 to upload a 30-second video explaining why they’re the best for the job.
The event’s official Facebook page had almost 160,000 likes by late yesterday and some 31,000 people had already thrown their hat in the ring, according to officials, with 8,000 applications flooding in in the first two hours alone.
The initiative was largely well received, but some Australians questioned why such plum jobs should be offered to foreigners when there were adequately skilled local people looking for work.
“I’m pretty sure most Australians would be against this publicity stunt... I would love this job, just like any other Australian, and paying some foreigners $100,000 to come here for 6 months! How about giving those jobs to Australians first!” wrote one unemployed Australian on the campaign’s Facebook page.
Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy said the competition was expected to appeal to youth travelers’ sense of fun and adventure. “The competition provides an excellent platform to entice more young people from around the world to come to Australia to holiday, but also to work, helping to fill many unfilled tourism jobs across Australia,” he said.
The chief funster position is New South Wales-based and involves becoming a Sydney VIP, attending and reviewing festivals and events and tweeting thoughts.
The taste master in Western Australia will tour top restaurants, wineries, breweries and pubs while the outback adventurer will be tasked with uncovering the best experiences for Northern Territory working holidaymakers.
Other jobs include a park ranger in Queensland, a lifestyle photographer in Victoria and wildlife caretaker in South Australia, moving around by foot, kayak, bicycle, and boat.
Previous winner Southall said the experience was life-changing.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be diving, or skydiving or cooking or bushwalking — and I did all of them,” he said.
“It’s one of those things where you’ve just got to go for it and see where it leads you.”
India’s political environment today stands virtually paralyzed due to political uncertainties hanging over the survival of the Congress Government which for all practical purposes is a minority government after the DMK has withdrawn support over the Sri Lanka policy issue. This paralysis is likely to continue till mid-2014 when the next General Elections are ordinarily due. The picture could change should either SP Chief Mulayam Singh or BSP Supremo Mayawati choose to withdraw the outside support that they have been extending to the Congress Government for its survival.
With political uncertainty about the survival of the Congress Government doggedly being faced at each step and each day, policy paralysis seems to be setting in the civil bureaucracy not noted either for its spine or efficiency. In such politically uncertain times when political leaders tend to bend rules for implementing populist measures and sops for the electorate in the run-up to the General Elections, the bureaucracy will be tempted to soft-pedal political directions going by the pattern of political leaders shirking blame in all the corruption scandals that have plagued India in the last 3-4years.
In this process even routine administrative functioning ceases to exist going by past record in such situations. This is further compounded by the fact that no one knows whether the Government will survive till the next morning.
While wholesale and rampant corruption at the highest political levels has numbed the Indian public which has nothing but contempt for the political class, the bigger dangers to India lie in the fields of national security and foreign policy formulation, as a result of the policy paralysis.
In the national security field India’s war preparedness against China and Pakistan is dismally low because of the large number of contracts cancelled mid-way in the process of finalization due to bureaucratic lethargy, ponderous procedures or corruption imposed from higher political levels. Development of critical infrastructure in the border areas with China is not making any headway on silly grounds of delay like lack of environmental clearances.
India’s foreign policies stand messed up ever since 2004 when this Government came into power. This particularly applies to India’s foreign policies towards India’s military adversaries, namely, China and Pakistan. All that this Government has done in the last nine years is the unwarranted appeasement of China and Pakistan despite their unceasing destabilization strategies inflicted on a strategically naive India.
India’s destiny seems to be jinxed that it has to suffer lack of effective governance and policy paralysis over so many years. The major blame for this state of affairs needs to be shouldered by India’s middle class that till 2013 has still not politically empowered itself.
One piously hopes that India’s Generation which flooded in thousands to Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption rallies or the anti-rape demonstrations some months back would with their new voting eligibility would steer India away from the present rotten and despicable political scheme of things.
With B-schools mushrooming everywhere, India has no dearth of trained managers, but not enough places to fit them in.
With degrees tucked under their belt and a promise of hefty paychecks, newly minted MBAs prepare to fulfil their dreams in the new India. In a nation with high hopes from the future, this image is incompatible with the reality that it is faced with today: how to employ these Masters of Business Administration? Are there enough jobs on offer? Has the proliferation of business schools caused a surge of talent (or untalent) in the market? Are we facing an MBA glut?
“India’s planners (especially the HRD ministry) have no clue on matching skills needed by the country with capacity,” says Arvind Singhal of Technopak, a firm that offers consultancy services on education. “Most developed countries have a medium and long-term assessment of the composition of their national economies and encourage the creation of academic capacity on those lines.”
Though the economic slowdown has caused overseas job markets to be less welcoming of outsiders, our problems are more deep rooted. From a haphazard policy on industry-led job creation to ignoring employment- inducing businesses such as tourism, food processing, textiles, small entrepreneurship and more, we have many reasons for failing ourselves. “The main problem is about creating jobs,” says Arvind Subramanian, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development.
There is also a lack of focus on developing appropriate skill-sets. “Unfortunately, most research on our demographic dividend is limited only to its numeric strength,” says Adil Malia, Head (Human Resource Operations) at the Essar Group. “But the quality of our human capital reflects huge skills-and-competency deficits.”
This is partly due to our education system stressing too much on academic knowledge, while the developed economies emphasise vocational education and skill- development. Many management graduates in India have not even seen a workplace. Nurtured on a diet of hypothetical studies in B-schools, they collapse in the face of real-time challenges at the workplace.
Moreover, when someone opts for a non-MBA route, the environment in India punishes him/her for trying. We do not consider failure as a learning experience but a miscarriage of opportunities.
This mentality has driven the mushrooming of B-schools across the country. According to a rough estimate, MBA seats in India have quadrupled from 90,000 to almost 4 lakh in the past five years. The MBAs turned out by many of these schools often lack good communication skills and are low on confidence. Yet the ‘formula’ has done wonders for ‘investors’ in education. Singhal explains that a 12 to 21-month MBA programme offers the “best” financial return in the education sector as “unlike engineering and medicine, a B- school requires only basic infrastructure and relatively easy-to-find faculty, while the fees are almost the same”.
So it’s no surprise that India today produces the highest number of MBAs a year, but only the best land jobs with high salaries, while the rest have to make do with unsatisfactory roles. Many end up disgruntled with the cost benefit ratio of doing an MBA. Singhal insists there is a “herd mentality” at work. “Over the past three decades, MBA has come to be seen as a route to big salaries.”
But who will create jobs for these MBAs? Subramanian says it’s foolhardy to think jobs can grow despite industry. “Can we do this without growth in manufacturing? But that requires infrastructure, regulatory certainty and all the things the Indian State has increasingly become bad at providing.”
For the past two decades, India has grown at a frenetic pace, but with little growth in jobs, the narrative offers no solace to aspiring job seekers. We have improved productivity, but often with machines, not by harnessing our human resources. If we don’t change our approach to management, create new sectors and promote entrepreneurship, we will be left with a generation full of ideas but not a chance to put them to use — a recipe for social unrest.
India is the land of gods. We celebrate the divine in its myriad forms, elevating stone idols, animals, and humans to celestial heights. Worship comes easier than its lesser cousin, love. But when our mortal gods shows signs of frailty, adoration often sours into disappointed contempt, be it for a flailing Sachin Tendulkar or Shahrukh Khan or now Sanjay Dutt.
The debate over Dutt’s punishment has followed predictable lines, centred narrowly around his celebrity, i.e. Bollywood divinity. The question is: Does he deserve “special treatment”? His critics condemn calls for clemency as yet more evidence of the celebrity double-standard, while political and Bollywood supporters argue that Dutt is being punished for being a celebrity.
When Sanjay Dutt finally emerged to face the media, he proved both sides wrong. He played neither celebrity victim nor villain, neither declaring his innocence nor demanding ‘special treatment’. He instead revealed himself as wholly human, a middle-aged broken man, weeping even as he tried to maintain the remaining shreds of his dignity.
“All I can tell you is I have not applied for pardon. “There are many other people who deserve pardon. I want to tell with folded hands to the media, the honourable citizens of the country that when I am not going for pardon then there can be no debate about it,” he said, “I am shattered and this is the tough time in my life. With folded hands I request the media and citizens let me be at peace.”
The public breakdown is unlikely to shift the needle of public opinion. Both those baying for his blood and pleading for clemency are uninterested in Sanjay Dutt per se. To one set, he is the symbol of a treasonous, Muslim underworld-loving Bollywood, supported by ‘sickular’ liberals like Shanti Bhushan and Congi-supporters a la Markandeya Katju. To others, he offers a convenient platform for political grandstanding, much like Kamal Hassan offered an excuse to take aim at Jayalalithaa. Hence, Digvijay Singh’s description of Dutt as ‘a great man’ as a means to bolster his party’s ‘secular’ credentials, and take a dig at the Shiv Sena: “Sanjay Dutt, at a young age, in the atmosphere of that time, thought that perhaps the way Sunil Dutt had been raising his voice against communalism and favoured the minorities, then perhaps he could be attacked,”
Dutt is not ‘great’ by any stretch of the imagination, but he is undoubtedly a man, as in merely human. The fact, if acknowledged, may allow us to express compassion without condoning his actions. In the midst of the Bollywood celebrities and politicians clamouring to his side, only one has extended such mercy: Rakhee Gulzar. Her statement is worth reading in its entirety:
It breaks my heart to say this. I love Sanjay like my own child. I’ve been associated with that wonderful family from the time I did Reshma Aur Shera which was my first film with Sunil Dutt saab. Sanjay has grown up in front of me. I remember him as a lonely child. After Nargis’ death Dutt saab got busy with various activities. I remember at the outdoor location of one of my films, Sanjay had lice in his hair and his lips had gone white because of a vitamin deficiency.
He is basically a very loving and affectionate boy. But he got into the wrong company… And look where it has landed him today (here she breaks down). I know how much he has gone through. But to say that his jail term should be pardoned because he has suffered a lot is insensitive to those whose lives were shattered by the 1993 bomb blasts. Instead of spending 20 years pleading innocence and victimisation, Sanjay should’ve accepted he had made a mistake, served his full sentence and started his life afresh.
Instead his advisers, hangers-on and those lawyers are mis-advising him. Today, I see his so-called friends shedding tears and pleading for leniency. If he is pardoned the common people’s faith in the legal system would be shaken. Instead Sanjay should accept the court’s verdict with dignity and serve his sentence. His conscience would be clear. He will be loved and respected a lot more for accepting and abiding by the court’s verdict.
Those who loved Sanjay best and as he is — a troubled man with a difficult childhood who made terrible choices — have never shielded him from the law. As INN reminds us in our last post, it is Sunil Dutt who turned his own son over to the authorities. The same Sunil Dutt also prostrated himself in front of Bal Thackeray to beg for mercy. Such is the love of fathers, and their guilt at having failed their children.
As his press conference, Sanjay Dutt finally took Rakhee’s advice, and reaffirmed the values of his parents who were good, imperfect people. As is he. Sanjay Dutt does not deserve a pardon. But in embracing that difficult truth, he revealed himself to be worthy of our compassion.
