Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Life and times of my old stone mill
BackBack

Life and times of my old stone mill

A neighbourhood where you know your neighbours, and a rugged, earthy return to culinary tradition

A stone mortar and pestle. Photo: ShutterstockPremium
A stone mortar and pestle. Photo: Shutterstock

Salaam alaikum, wantich aayen? You’ve come alone? My friendly, neighbourhood coconut-wallah—30-something, scraggly beard, unusual white-and-red-striped skullcap—doesn’t usually see me alone.

Most mornings, he waves and smiles when the five-year-old skips by on her way to school. When we return, he sees us crossing the narrow, grimy pedestrian bridge over the railway tracks and starts to lop the top off a pani-wala (green) coconut. We share a coconut, she loudly says, “thank you", he replies, “Welcome, baby", and so the day goes.

But today is a Sunday, and I have just finished a morning run, ending at the coconut-wallah. “Walekum as-salam," I pant. “Ghar pay hain, paani-wala do bhai." She’s at home, I’m alone, and he can see I am thirsty. Swiftly and expertly, he lops off the top with his evil-looking machete, and hopefully asks, “Aur do parcel hona?" Do I want two more, to go? Well, I want four more, to go. Delighted, he digs out a strand of green husk from all the coconuts, weaves them into sturdy, intertwined ropes, and my parcel of coconuts is ready.

As I leave, I spot the local Tamilian boys laying out their fruits on the pavement. “Vanakkam saar," says a lithe young man with the build of a footballer (a Pottery Road boy, I categorize him, from the down-at-heel football-crazy locality nearby), carefully arranging his apples and bananas. I ask for 12 bananas in Kannada, and he swiftly switches to Kannada. But now, I am struggling with my clump of plump coconuts and bananas. A man on a scooter pulls up. “Yenu saar, lift kodla nimge?" Shall I give you a lift? It’s the owner of the local general store, the genial gentlemen who normally grins when I loudly yell, “Namaskaari, Jai Karnataka" and do an exaggerated namaste, as I run by his store. I clamber on to his scooter. He knows the way to my house. On the way, we discuss the men enthusiastically digging up a new, concretized footpath, and he moans about how water lines and “chamber" lines (sewage, so called after “chamber pots", or thunder boxes, in the days before flush toilets) mix every time they attack the roads.

Such are the linguistic and cultural pleasures of living in a neighbourhood where you actually know the neighbours. When we moved to Richards Town in a sylvan corner of eastern Bengaluru, I was often depressed by what my city had become—a graveyard of rain trees and a hub of illegal construction. But as I abandoned my car and walked, I found the people and traditions had not changed. The joys of living in a multicultural neighbourhood slowly became apparent. Church processions, Eid markets, temple percussion—we have it all, and I am grateful it’s a part of our daily life. The 5-minute walk to my parents’ home often takes me on a journey through time. We watch the mangoes in the few surviving trees grow bigger; we smile at the woman who always smiles at us from the gate of a stately bungalow that serves as an old people’s home; we wave to the man behind the counter of Happy Belly, a local bakery; we walk in, sometimes, to see the latest at APaulogy, a gallery run by Paul Fernandes, a local chronicler of old Bangalore; we walk past the lovers and young people having coffee under a rain tree, past the gossipy auto drivers on the corner who never seem to go anywhere; we call to Blackie, the ageing but affectionate stray; and we turn our faces to the gentle, Bengaluru breeze.

So, I learned to accept the chaos of Friday traffic from the Hajee Sir Ismail Sait Mosque and Sunday morning traffic to the Holy Ghost Church. I learned to shake my head and smile at the little boys on cycles and young men on motorcycles—all with their front wheels off the ground. You see, wheelies are also local tradition. I remember them being performed when I was in school (and mastering them soon after joining college).

As you can tell, neighbourliness, tradition and the old ways have, lately, been on my mind. Inevitably, the feeling crept into my kitchen, and I started finding my battered mixer-grinder very boring and mechanical. My attention turned to the old stone mill consigned to a corner of my kitchen. It’s a miniature version of the old ragda, the heavy-duty mortar pestle that was usually embedded in a rough-hewed stone, set in the kitchen counter or floor. My mother has an old, portable version—if you can call requiring three-four men to move it portable. On the rare occasion it is used, chutneys and masalas are ground down to a coarse paste that somehow imbibes the earthiness of the stone.

My miniature ragda, I recently discovered, actually delivers that earthiness, although its pounder is wood, not stone. I pound away now. I turned out basil pestos and fresh, roasted masalas. The old, stone mill is remarkably quick, doing its job as rapidly as mixer-grinder, perhaps quicker. The recipe below unfolded on a warm, windblown Sunday, the roasted spices mingling easily with garlic, sesame oil and red-wine vinegar. The acidity and smokiness combined in a way I imagine they did when servants slaved away at the old, stone grinders in those old bungalows with mango trees and, well, chamber pots. Enthused, my wife has laid claim to my mother’s decommissioned ragda, secure in the knowledge that I will include it in our lives.

When I walked out after a generous Sunday lunch of biryani—made by one of the neighbourhood ladies—and my stone-ground-masala-clad fish, a sudden rush of traffic and acrid, kerosene-fired autorickshaw smoke knocked me back to reality. But we would, hopefully, always have our neighbourhood, our traditions and, without doubt, an old stone mill.

Baked fish in stone-ground masala

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

Half kg fish fillet (I used a single, long piece of surmai, or kingfish)

1 dried red chilli

1 tsp melon seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

Half-inch piece cinnamon

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp red-wine vinegar

2 cloves of garlic

Salt to taste

Method

Roast the dried red chilli, cinnamon and the melon and coriander seeds. Take off flame when the melon seeds start to pop. Place in a stone grinder, pound well. Add garlic and sesame oil and pound some more. When the spices start to come together, add vinegar and continue till they become a coarse paste.

Place the fish on a foil, rub in the paste and salt on both sides. It will not seem like a lot, but it is adequate.

Close the foil and place in the oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes.

Serve hot.

This is a column on easy, inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar also writes the fortnightly science column Frontier Mail for Mint and is the author of the book The Married Man’s Guide to Creative Cooking And Other Dubious Adventures.

Read Samar’s previous Lounge columns here.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 12 Jun 2015, 09:52 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App