I was awakened this morning just before 7:30 by a tap-tapping on my door by Bhavya. “Yoga Ma’am, I am ready to do yoga,” she was cheerful. Yesterday she referred to me as Yoga Ma’am and now everyone in the house has taken to calling me Yoga Ma’am rather than Auntie or Madam. I needed to get ready so our session began an hour later. After yoga she taught me some of the dance steps from the dance she performed a couple nights before.
Kulo decided that we should lunch in this great place where there is a danger of eating too much – a vegetarian buffet. We started off with soups, some appetizers of fried baby corn and paneer tikka. Then a dish that was like a spongy cake about the color of polenta served with a spiced mint chutney followed by puri (fried balls of dough) served with a creamy curd, mint chutney and chili chutney. I only made my way through a few of the several main course offerings and selected dishes that appeared to have the most vegetables which I ate with a paratha smothered in ghee or butter or both. Next was fried dal with plain rice but the dal was too salty for me Kulo said it was almost perfect. I sampled a few of the different desserts- a mung daal sweet, a fried patty that soaked in a sweet milk sugar sauce, a Bengali sweet that tasted of rose and Indian ice cream. It was a veritable food coma! I enjoy Indian food but I have a limit on fried foods and the sweets, though delicious are so sweet due to both sugar and milk sugar.
After lunch Bhavya and I had our hands and forearms decorated with mehndi in front of the restaurant. There were four boys in their late teens/early twenties creating all sorts of fanciful decorations on the hands of women. Bhavya’s design was Turkish/Arabic whereas mine was more floral and birdlike. She later confessed that she had asked for diamonds in her design and pointed to the area of her wrist where this was painted. Before my right hand was painted Kulo brought out the most wonderful lassi I have ever tasted. Sure, I had just had a big lunch but the drink was so refreshing. It was served in a clay pot which is rare these days and was flavored with a touch of saffron and cardamom.
Once my right hand was painted I was completely reliant on others to open doors and do things for me in order to not smudge the decoration. The longer you let the mehndi sit, the darker the dye will be. After a few hours it started to flake off and Myth squeezed lemon on our arms and scrubbed with the lemon rind. The color was so bright on my palms – a vibrant orange. Then Bhavya came upstairs with me to put some tea tree oil to seal the skin.
In the evening I helped Bhavya a little with her homework and did some yoga with Rajlakshmi. Kulo and Bhavya joined the yoga session. We went out in the evening while the baby slept in Rajlakshmi’s arms for a quick bite to eat. To be honest, I was not at all hungry, I was mostly interested in a fresh lime soda. I ordered such a boring meal: a supreme cheese sandwich. Many of the other items on the menu were either deep-fried or too heavy. They gave me a hard time for ordering such a sandwich which was melted mozzarella on white bread. I really wanted a salad, but I was not that brave!
No comments:
Post a Comment