70 Days After Ramzan.

Its Eid- Al- Adha today popularly known as Bakri Eid. It is the festival of sacrifice to commemorate the day Ibrahim was willingly ready to sacrifice his son Ishmael to show obedience to God. However, God intervened and provided Ibrahim with a sheep to sacrifice instead the life of his son. 

This is still practiced in which a goat bakri is slaughtered and the meat is used to prepare a feast for the family and community. Biryani, kababs, goat curry are the popular dishes.

There was a thread of discussion on biryani cravings on the Mumbai Food Bloggers Page. Papa just told me that Shaffi uncle's wife is sending us some homemade Lucknow style biryani and kababs. I'm really excited. Its my birthday tomorrow so this is going to be a treat to eat homemade super sexy biryani from Lucknow. 

However, I remembered that I had taken some lovely pictures of Ramzan a few months back. I had taken my friend Mark to Mohammed Ali Road at the Minara Masjid area for to check out food scene. I had seen this post on Mumbai Paused and could not stop drooling. 

It was the monsoon and it was raining that night. We walked down the street during prayer time, it was a solemn affair. Right after the prayers, the place was alive. Stalls selling- chicken soups, kababs, tikkas, botis, niharis, fried chicken, breads, and of course biryani. Stall after stall, some sit down restaurants. Turn in a different direction and there are dessert stalls frying up malpua, jalebis, serving cold firni, badam flavored milk, pancakes, ladoos with fried puris. It was alive, energetic and most of people despite fasting without food and water all day were very friendly, explaining the food and tradition, open to discussions, and most of all everyone had a smile on their face. A nation of smiles. And why shouldn't they be, after a long hard day of fasting, this food would be the ultimate satisfaction.

Back to the best biryani debate- I ate some really fantastic biryani here that night. The best chicken biryani ever.

So without wasting more time & before I forget - I want to share with you the pictures I took during Ramzan almost 70 days ago. Looking forward to my biryani tomorrow. Yum!

Smiling away despite all the smoke. Some really succulent chicken kababs.

To die for Nihari- the restaurant owner told us that he sources his marrow for the Nihari for Rs 400 a kgs. The nihari is cooked for hours.

Also have you seen The Dewarists yet. The second episode with Zeb & Haniya and Shantanu and Swanand in Mumbai - they go to Minara Masjid for a meal in the rain and eat some really amazing kababs as well. We could have crossed paths that night. They came up with the most amazing song in collaboration as a group. I love this song and the lyrics are beautiful.

Of Short Skirts, Fancy Shoes and Wine served in Plastic Cups

Last month I attended Sula Fest. Initially, I was not entirely impressed with the whole thing. It was alright. The food was Ok, the music performances were short of stellar and the energy level could have been taken up several notches. The line up was Something Relevant (the saxophonist Ryan who I love), Petri Dish project with Ashu of Blue frog and Monica Dogra, Anushka, Pentagram and Medeival Pundits (I took a rain check on the last). However the wine was lovely of course and Sula owns a fantastic property in Nashik. But the more I think about it that maybe this festival wasn't entirely about the wine or the food or the music. I think what I really had fun was checking out the haute couture. What with Lakme Fashion Week 2011 coming up this Friday I thought it would be great to share my attempt at fashion photography.

This adventure to Sula was only possible with the help of my two friends Keith and Nishanth and my mom's car. Nishanth was a total trooper to drive all three of us from Mumbai to Sula (Nashik) and back in one piece all in one day. I had been to Sula before in the monsoon and the views from their tasting room are decadent of endless rolling grapevines and interspersed with lakes. Absolutely beautiful.
Like I said the food was passable- burgers, kheema pao, Italian, Chinese, Indian- the whole spread. Nothing really stood out to me. The Bournville Dark Chocolate and wine pairing was interesting. The wine was delicious but was served in plastic cups. Considering it was a huge festival I suppose thats forgiven. But really delicious wine. My favourite wine is the Dindori Reserve Vignier. So good.
But most interesting was the hot fashion, the shortest skirt, the cute sandals, men in linen shirts, sexy jeans, women with fun hair dos, sunglasses, smiles and grins.
So channeling my inner Sartorialist - here it is Food Blogger turns Fashion Blogger-

The beautiful Sheetal Malhar

Last year I came down to the vineyards during the monsoons. We were designing a wine bottle label and toured the wine country for inspiration. Check these beautiful photos. Totally worth a visit don't you think.

Amdavad ka Pyar- Uttarayan Day 2

These photographs were too beautiful to pass up the opportunity to post them.  I was in Ahmedabad during Uttarayan to celebrate with my friend Prashant the completion of his latest feature film- Patang which I hear was very well received in the Berlinale this year. Read my previous post on my 4 day experience with the film crew and cast in Amdavad.

On the second day of the kite flying festival, Uttarayan,  I wandered through the streets of Raipur Khadiya walking into Pol house enclosures. Closely looking at the details of the exquisite woodwork.  The rich history of the old city, the gorgeous crafts all comes alive in these old ancestral homes. My friend Jai Thakkar has written a beautiful book called Naqsh in which he has painstakingly studies, sketched, drafted these gorgeous carvings and details and the overall heirarchy of the Pol architecture. The book not only has wonderful images but also is beautifully designed- great collection for the libraray.  We visited the miniature Kite Museum which was run by this lovely organization called Vaarso. It was great just wandering through the old city. My mind was alive with memories of days spent in CEPT when we would grudgingly step into the old city. Over the years, we opened our minds to wonders of these streets. Just when it started to feel like home, it was time to move on. For me- I left the country. Coming back after 10 years to my favorite city, I could not help observe how calm its residents are in all this excitement. Happy to welcome you into their homes, their lives, try a chikki here, chat with a couple of kids there, sit with the pujari of the temple while she undoes a mess of dori and for me- I made shy eye contact with many style bhais on the roof top ready to start a second day of the kite flying madness. I again shadowed Gopal of Mumbai Paused, watching him in action, as he chatted away with the various people, photographing them, listening to their stories. People start to comfortably pose for the camera as you make it more about them and not just a random click. We went to this very tall building, to see the view of the city below. It was absolutely beautiful. It seemed to be tallest building in the old city. The random overlapping grids of the streets, the chaos of the old city, layered with the colorful kites in the sky, speckled with people on rooftops, music blaring, merging into familiar Bollywood songs blending, the chatter, a general air of celebration and joy.

As I make this post, I read online that today on Feb 26th, Amdavad celebrates 600 years. So sharing with you this wonderful city at its best-

 

See the Picture that Gopal clicked here

I also made a drawing for Prashant of the view of the rooftop we were flying kites on. I did not document the final sketch but Gopal clicked a pic of me starting to draw.
Maybe Prashant can scan me a copy so I can put it up here.

Navratri Nights- CEPT Style!

I'm back in Bombay with the Ahmedabad Blues. The Navratri music is still playing in my head- the coarse voice of the village singer is swimming in my mind as I hum the tunes of traditional Garba music such as "Pankhira" and "Dholina". I went back to Ahmedabad after 8 years. I have a long association with the city. To begin with- I was born there. I came back to study high school there and then later SID, CEPT. It was a city I had my first crush in, my first love, and my first heartbreak. I grew up in this city. My time at SID was the most formative years of my life. From struggling to understand the technicalities of space to a simple idea of a concept. What I love about Ahmedabad is the celebrations. Whether its Holi, Janamashtmi, Navratri, Diwali or Uttarayan- the festivities are beautiful and magical. More so the CEPT University takes pride in the celebrations that it hosts for the city.
Navratri- Nine Nights - before Dussehra (the tenth day) is celebrated all over Gujarat and Maharastra with nine nights of dancing. At CEPT, Navratri becomes an incredible project in lighting design, sculpture, painting murals, and most of all hospitality. It is one of the most popular Garba in all of Ahmedabad. It is the most traditional where everyone dances in a big circle around the Devi Ambe and the music is always performed by village musicians and yet very modern and a bit anti-establishment-like. I remember working in the studio, slipping on a chaniya (skirt) and running to the grounds to do a couple of rounds of dancing and then running back to the studio and pulling an all nighter for a submission next morning. Aah those were the days- sleepless nights. My body would hurt for nine days but the spirit of dancing was more important.
Oooh the other thing that I love about the CEPT garba is the fashionable clothing. The women mostly experment in styles, mixing Western with traditional. Backless Cholis have always been the flavor of the season. Mirrored long skirts paired with halter tops. Sexy cholis with jeans. Even a traditional Chaniya Choli outfit paired in its textures and color looks very unique. Big jewellery pieces, head gears, lovely draping of dupattas all make for gorgeous accessories.
Below are the photos of the incredible lighting- all designed by SID students (so proud), the dancing and the fashions at CEPT. I tried once again to sort through the hundreds of pictures I took.
Also want to thank the Shastris for being such great hosts, Lahar for the company to Ahmedabad. It was a pleasure meeting all my old pals- Kamalika, Anand, Vishal, Natasha, Chandni, Dhara, Pooja, Birju, and ofcourse interacting with the new soon- going to be fabulous designers.
CEPT never ceases to inspire...

Hear the sound of the music. I love the song Dholina.

The kid sleeping belonged to the family of musicians. The music is played all the way to the wee hours of the morning. These nine days is probably the most important way of making an income for the family. hence the sacrifice.

And now for some of the hot Belles that caught my eye. Well some of them I knew..