‘Following Fish’ down and up the Indian coast with Samanth Subramanian …

This book is one gastronomic delight for fish-eaters …

Even a sort of antiseptic fish-eater like me couldn’t keep myself from imagining and dreaming about eating some of the fish dishes that Samanth Subramanian talks about and eats with gusto in this wonderful travel book … all right, not everything in this book about ‘eating’ fish … but everything is actually about ‘fish’ … fishing, fish medicine, angling, fishing communities, fishing-boat building, and fish eating …

Samanth Subramanian starts chasing fish from Kolkata, with, Hilsa or Ilish … this first chapter is reserved for finding and eating ilish at various places in Kolkata …  and in between mouthfuls of ilish and bhaath and plucking out bones, there are opinions and discussions about the relative merits of ilish from both sides of the border … the best way to eat it … how to pick your way through those exasperating bones … of course, true blue Bengalis might find other bones to pick in Subramanian’s narrative considering the reverence with which they hold ilish … ilish is almost a parallel religion in Bengal …

From Kolkata, Subramanian travels down the east coast, and comes inland to Hyderabad … and from all that epicurean delights of Ilish-ian Kolkata, we suddenly come to just the ‘curean’ … the ‘fish cure’ medicine that is made and distributed to people suffering from Asthma … this is an annual sort of event that used to be a small affair until the government started bestowing its patronage … and it became a kind of mela ... Subramanian documents all these in a very interesting anecdotal manner and even eats the live fish stuffed with the medicine … I have been living in Hyderabad for the last twenty years and reading about this ‘fish medicine’ thing, but this was the first time I read something so comprehensive about this day in the life of Hyderabad … very lively narrative …    

Further down the coast travels Subramanian and comes to Tamil Nadu … here goes to Manapadu and meets and talks to the members of the fisherman community called the Paravas … gives us a history of this community from their early days to their conversio to Christianity and their current syncretic customs and traditions …

From Tamil Nadu, we turn the corner and land in Kerala … aah … in and around Tiruvananthapuram … and the narrative also takes a turn, and returns to the delights of fish eating, along with some spiritual stuff too … this episode is like a detour into a well-hidden subterranean parallel stream … this is a stream only the initiates would know … Subramanian takes us on a tour of toddy shops and introduces us to such toddy-shop fish delights as kappa-meen curry … oohhhh … karimeen … mussels … yeah … and we have a spiritual Subramanian who discusses the merits of various kinds of toddy and toddy-shop food … and of course, the discussion also veers towards the fishing business, fishermen, etc … all in all, an enjoyable auto ride …

Next stop, Mangalore … moving up the west coast … though Mangalore is my ‘native place,’ I didn’t know such eating places as described and visited by Subramanian existed there … anyway, then I had neither money nor freedom … what is the best part of the Mangalore episode?  The last part … where Mr Vasudev Boloor’s brother’s son’s wife, Shailaja cooks a mackerel fish curry … in a masala made of 35 to 40 dried red chillies … ‘sinus-clearing’ dish, says Subramanian … right from washing and descaling to serving, the whole episode is mouthwatering … the entire book is worth it for this piece alone … 

Further up the west coast … Goa … and then … Mumbai … the Goa episode reminds you of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea … it is a wonderful description of Danny Moses’ chasing the elusive sailfish, the fastest fish in the ocean … he almost gets it once, but it got away after a sort of ‘epic’ struggle … and the chapter goes on to talk about the angling, that gentle Goan ‘activity’ … it is about the pleasure of the act itself rather than what you catch … but things are changing in Goa and construction activity has put a spoke in the wheel of this activity … there is languor in angling … and poignancy in the description that it may not continue for long …

Last but one stop is Mumbai … Subramanian wants to eat fish as the city once ate and goes looking for fish dishes among the fisher-folk of Mumbai, the members of the Koli community … he eats a fish meal in a typical ‘khanawal’ lunch home called Ananthashram and that leads on to a question about the specificities of the Gomantak and Malvani cuisines … and Subramanian was advised to eat his way around Mumbai and find out … and he does that and eats various kinds of fish cooked in various styles … and finally at a small eatery in Mahim, the proprietress, gives him an ‘angry’ (because he wondered whether the food was Gomantak or Malvani!!) master class in Gomantak cuisine, and shows him how it is different from Malvani cuisine … he tries in vain to find an ‘authentic’ Koli restaurant, but ended up going to two fake places and decides that he would ‘shamelessly abuse someone’s hospitality and invite oneself’ … he meets Gobind Patil, and Gobind Patil cooks him a Koli meal … and what a meal!!  Read it to find out … or better, if you get a chance, eat and find out …

It is but geographical that Subramanian’s last chapter is located in Gujarat … he makes a neat V, starting from Kolakata, coming down the east coast, turning at the bottom of the V, and going up the west coast, and ending the narrative in Gujarat … he takes us to Veraval and Mangrol, two of Gujarat’s ship building cities … a completely different perspective to ‘fish’ actually … the going out and bringing in of fish and how effectively and efficiently it can be done … when we are relishing these wonderful fish dishes along the coast, we only concentrate on what is there in front of us on the plate … not how it got there, who brought it in, and the other logistics of the whole enterprise … it is sobering to know that the people in Veraval and Mangrol take pains to make that perfect fishing vessel and take pride in doing a job well … that brings fish to plate …   

Well … here we are … at the end of Finding Fish … a lively and informative travel book with a strong theme … a book that is ‘delicious,’ witty, poignant, suffused with history, and written with an eye for detail … and ear for nuance … and these two, detail and nuance, are best seen in a sort of ‘surreal’ exchange between a pony-tailed middle-aged man in jeans and t-shirt and a gray-bearded Sikh in a baseball cap in Anantashram, an old ‘khanawal’ in Mumbai (Pp. 139-140) … 

Hot Tea across India -- Rishad Saam Mehta delights with an enchanting tea-sipping ride …

One purchase of a travel book and that canny online bookseller started tempting me with more such travel books … it didn’t take long to persuade me to ‘only look’ at such proffered books … I put together a wishlist of around 4 books and after reading about them on the site, finalized two … Rishad Saam Mehta’s Hot Tea across India is one of the two …

When I read the title I thought it would be a kind of travelogue across tea growing places or places with distinct tea drinking cultures or different types of tea and the making of it in different places with local sights and sounds thrown in … but the blurb on the site told me that this book looks at ‘tea’ in terms of its ubiquitousness (?) on Indian roads … I altered the direction of my expectations and wondered … I would have loved to read any interesting travel book about tea growing places, or tea drinking cultures and so on … but this book seemed promising and I thought why not? 

Yes, the book fulfilled its promise and after reading it in two sittings, I can say that it is an engrossing read … it doesn’t pretend to be profound, but it takes you along on a merry ride across Indian roads and I enjoyed the ride, riding pillion on Rishad Saam Mehta’s bike and sometimes sitting in his car … stopping for hot tea at intervals …

All right, the premise is this … and Rishad Saam Mehta makes it clear in the opening lines of the book …

If there is one certainty about roads in India, it is that – no matter where you are or what the hour – if you want a cup of tea, you’ll find a chai ki dukaan within a few kilometres.  The tea shop is an integral part of Indian national highways, state highways, minor roads, even rough tracks.  From the desolate unsealed roads of Spiti high up in the Himalayas, to the sinuous route to Munnar, a cup of tea is within easy reach …

The first episode sets the tone for the book … to hitch a ride on a truck to travel from Mumbai to Delhi … and then write about it … and this episode is full of fun, adventure, and embarrassment and there is lots of tea … and one such cuppa leads to this really huge embarrassment …

It is not one continuous journey, but different journeys tied together with tea … so you see the writer in different parts of the country travelling by road and enjoying the tea … but to cut the long story short, it is his descriptions of travel across the Himalayan landscape that forms the bulk of the narrative and it is indeed engrossing … the visions of the mountains and the tranquility that he experiences are otherworldly … Rishad Saam Mehta has a warm way with words and his descriptions of his feelings in the Himalayas come across as extremely heartfelt … at some places the ride becomes dangerous and the narrative takes on a tone of suspense and the pace increases …

Then there is a hilarious bus chase on the Delhi-Haryana road with Jolly Jhunjhunwalla … and the suspense again rears its head in the last episode in Munnar, where he is saved by … yes, a tea-maker … who of course, doesn’t acknowledge it openly …

There is food, of course … and descriptions of delicious meals at Balbir Singh’s Dhaba on the Grand Trunk Road and at Ahdoos, Lal Chowk, Srinagar … oh, these made me very very hungry …

And there are lots of different types of tea too … the tea in a Ladakh monastery with yak’s butter floating on top … tea with cardamom and ginger in Gujarat … the railway station tea … the kullad chai … the cutting chai … and made by a former bandit in a desolate stop between Gwalior and Agra … a shepherd in Kashmir …

I wish more and more young boys and girls read books like this … it has everything going for it … there is no dull moment, and there is adventure, some suspense, some hilarity, evocative descriptions, some quiet moments, and some speed too and lots of tea, of course … and written with a sense of ease and comfort … 

Chai, Chai . . . Chai, Chai . . . Bishwanath Ghosh gets off in places where others only stop . . . !

When Chai, Chai first came out, I had read about it and felt I should buy and read it . . . I spoke about this book to a friend of mine and he came up with a strange kind of response . . . hey, he has written about where-all he got down from the train and where-all in those towns he went to drink . . . I wondered how far this could be true . . . this friend could sometimes be way off the mark . . . and he has a healthy disregard for people who drink . . . so, I wondered . . .

I first came across Bishwanath Ghosh through his blog, On the Ganga Mail, when I was generally googling about Mont Blanc fountain pens and read a post about his visit to Varanasi and how he had to unwillingly keep his wallet, Mont Blanc FP, watch, etc., with a shopkeeper while he went inside the temple . . . and since then I have followed his blog regularly . . . (now I too have 3 Mont Blanc FPs!)

And whenever I used to visit Bishwanath Ghosh’s blog, which was not very frequent mainly because he writes fewer posts now than earlier (2 till the end of April 2015, 9 in 2014, 12 in 2013, 27 in 2012 . . .) (he has suddenly increased his output in May 2015!!), I used to see the ‘Buy Chai, Chai’ button and continued to wonder . . . and in a recent post, he wrote about how it’s been more than five years since Chai, Chai was published and still continues to do well . . . and how his two later books, though written with much more discipline, awareness, and research than Chai, Chai are not as popular . . . and he writes about how Chai, Chai has been received by readers, and quotes their responses . . . I decided . . . I have to buy Chai, Chai and read it . . . and I did . . . bought it online and read in a day . . . chapter-wise . . . or rather, station-wise...

And to my surprise, he says in the ‘new preface’ to this edition, how Chai, Chai was received kindly by reviewers and readers, but there was one recurring complaint, ‘that it contains too many episodes of my drinking in the local bars’ . . . I found that bewitching . . . I could have said ‘honest,’ but lots of writers are honest anyway . . . and he goes on to say how he was being faithful to the narrative by describing things as they happened to him . . . and he writes some more about the inevitability of it all . . .

So, what about the rest of the book?  This post is only about my responses to the book, and not a review . . . firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book . . . what with me being as curious as Bishwanath Ghosh about places like Mughalsarai, Itarsi, Jhansi, Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai, and Shoranur  . . . places that you see only railway platforms of . . . I used to think about these places, but then the train moved on after replenishing and refreshing itself  . . . it was only after my father was transferred to Sultanpur in UP, that I saw the platforms of Mughalsarai, Itarsi, and Jhansi  . . . but Jolarpettai, Arakkonam, Shoranur were familiar platforms for our family as we moved around Tamil Nadu and Kerala and Karnataka in trains . . . there were other places too in the recent past as the trains chugged from Hyderabad to Howrah . . . and from thereon to Gaya . . . I saw only the platforms, and now don’t even remember the names . . . and somehow one place name keeps coming up again and again . . . Bongaigaon . . . I know it is in Assam, a place I have never visited . . . maybe it is a leftover name from my days of reading Railway Timetables . . . ha ha ha . . . ever done that? 

The concept of alighting at transit stations where, except for the residents of these places, no traveler ever thinks of going, is itself extraordinary and beguiling . . . but I am sure many of us, train travelers of some vintage, would have wondered however briefly, what went on in these towns . . . are Arakkonam’s and Jolarpettai’s claim to fame only their railway stations?  Or Shoranur, for that matter . . . Chai, Chai fulfils this desire in more ways than one . . . now we know a little more about Arakkonam and Jolarpettai, not to say Mughalsarai and Itarsi . . . these stations have become intervals in our journeys across India by rail . . . one measures the remaining distance or time depending on when the train reaches these places . . . aah, two more hours . . . enna, vandi late-a oduda?  . . . aaf-en-avar-le Jolarppetai vandudum, sar . . . says the tea-man . . . or pantry-car person . . . time to get down, stretch one’s legs, see if you can get today’s ‘English paper,’ which could well be yesterday’s with today’s date, and carries news about things that might well have taken place on another universe altogether, except for cricket and films, of course . . . 

The bars are all there . . . and Ghosh is clearly enjoying his time in them . . . the lodges, and the trouble he undergoes finding a room in one of them, the taxi journeys from the ‘centre’ of the towns to the ‘peripheries,’ his visits to ‘historical places,’ and temples, are all narrated with a great deal of involvement and interest . . . and towns like Arakkonam, Jolarppetai, and Shoranur, where Ghosh sees nothing to involve himself in and therefore less interesting, are dispatched in double quick time and space without dishonest lingering on . . .   and it comes out very clearly that Ghosh has taken this journey seriously and is as curious about these places as many of us would be except that he alights and comes out of the railway station . . . and sees the town and smells the whisky . . .

Chai, Chai reminded me of two books . . . one is Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August and the other is Pico Iyer’s Falling off the Map . . . for entirely different reasons . . . Chai, Chai evokes the small town feeling that is marvelously depicted in English, August  . . . a feeling of ennui . . . especially for someone who goes there from a big city or ‘metro’ . . . you don’t know what to do . . . Pico Iyer’s Falling off the Map is subtitled ‘some lonely places of the world’ . . . though there is a difference in scale, experience, and style, Chai, Chai is conceptually similar  . . . in Bishwanath’s Ghosh’s book one slides off these familiar platforms and tumbles into their unfamiliar towns . . .