In the twilight of a childhood with Lifebuoy Soap, Peechinga and a serving of Avial!

PC Krithis Kitchen

As the sun went down in the evening, the village line-man snapped in the huge fuse on its holder to turn on the street-lights.  The 40W naked bulbs were so feeble that the only purpose that they served was to mark up the electric lamp posts themselves so that one would not bump against them.  These lights also attracted all sorts of nightly insects that were curious about the light source and along with them came the creatures that saw an easy meal.  While they did not provide any assistance to the stray pedestrian, the gloomy streetlights added character to the dark mud roads.  They were taken for granted and the only time they became conspicuous was when the bulbs fused out, which was often.  But of course, we would not venture out in the dark without our favorite 'Eveready' torch, which probably was a shade brighter than the fireflies around.  Just like the streetlights, the flickering torchlights prevented others from running into you at night! 

We were not allowed to stay out after dark.  I had to be back home before the twilight (sandhya) deepened into darkness.  As a matter of routine, after I got back from school, I would first finish all my homework and then take off to play with my friends in the temple compound across home.  We would play till it got dark and reluctantly trudge back home - dirty, smelly and, most of the time, bruised in multiple parts of the body.  We had no footwear and would remove our shirts to avoid them getting torn when we fell on the dirt while playing.  Once at home, I would grab a towel from the clothesline and head straight to the water well to wash myself, after discarding the dirty clothes that I wore. 

A large granite stone with a flat surface sat next to the well.  This was used for washing clothes.  I would stand on the stone and pour bucket after bucket of fresh drawn sweet and cool water from the well over my head.  It was a sheer pleasure of unimaginable nature.  When I start overdoing it, mother, sitting on the verandah watching me, would call out saying that I would catch a cold.  She would bring over a dry peechinga (sponge gourd scrubber) and the soap box with a half Lifebuoy soap (red carbolic soap) in it and ask me to scrub myself well to get rid of all the mud and dirt.  I would scrub and scrub so much that my skin would turn pink. 

Peechinga (Sponge Gourd)

The peechinga is a natural scrubber and the vine grew wild all over the place.  Though the tender peechingas were edible, they were very bitter and we never used them for cooking.  They were inedible once ripe, but provided us with the best scrubber in the world.  (If we did not have the peechinga scrubber, we would use the coconut husk to scrub.)  For over 15 years of my childhood, I had never used any bathing soap other than Lifebuoy.  It was functional, it was cheap and it lasted forever!  And, yes, they made the greatest and biggest bubbles too!!

After the bath I would feel so clean, fresh and energetic and would smell, yes, carbolic, thanks to the Lifebuoy.  As was customary, I would  dab some vibhuti (sacred ash) on my forehead, chest and arms and say the mandatory daily prayers sitting in front of the oil lamp in the puja room.  These prayers consisted of a few select Sanskrit stotras (praises) and slokas (verses).  In my hurry, I would recite them so fast that all you would hear was a stream of hum as one word melded into another with extreme speed.  I wish I had better sense at that time since I can only remember the hum now and not the words.

Snacking was not part of my growing up.  The last food before dinner was a cup of coffee that I would have drunk as soon as I got back from school.  The exhaustion of rough play and the refreshing well side bath would have already taken me to a new level of hunger and the prayer turning into a stream of hum was the result of the gnawing hunger and my effort to get to the kitchen sooner.  House rules stated that no dinner without saying the prayers. 

 

PC Globosapiens

With supper done, mother would clean up the kitchen and lay away the dishes to be washed by the maid Chinnammu the next day morning.  By cleaning up the kitchen, it included removing all the ashes from the wood burning stoves (aduppu, kummatti), cleaning the stove tops and keeping a bundle of dry twigs and firewood to start the fire the next morning.  Mother would put a simple rice powder 'kolam'  (rangoli) on the top of the 'aduppu'.  Of course, the last thing to be done was to add sour buttermilk to the milk for curdling it.  This would set as curds by the next morning.  The left over buttermilk was accumulated and it would get more and more sour.

Once the kitchen was closed, mother would come and sit in the verandah talking to father.  I never listened to what they spoke to one another and it will remain a mystery forever.  Sister would be listening to film songs on the radio with father yelling at her to shut it off (he hated film songs).  And, I would pack my schoolbooks as per the 'time-table' (class schedule) and would get ready to roll out the beds....

Yes, bed rolls indeed.  There were no bedrooms in the house.  The only wooden cot in the hall was more like a double breadth bench and it was used as such during the daytime.  And, at night, farther would have his bedroll spread on it for him to sleep.  Rest of us slept on our bedrolls spread on the floor. 

Pulppaya

Olappaya

Jamakkalam

The bed roll typically was a thin cotton mattress upon a pulppaya (woven grass mat), olappaya (woven palm leaf mat) or jamakkalam.  This was covered with a bedsheet and complimented with a cotton filled pillow and a blanket or thick sheet for covering the body.  The mattress as well as the pillow gets hard over use and would feel like wood.

Kerosene Chimney Lamp

The electric lights were turned off when we went to bed, but a kerosene Chimney lamp was kept burning throughout the night.  Every night, in the chimney light, I would read myself into a dreamless slumber, lying on my stomach and with my chin on the pillow. ...

...

With no fridge to store the accumulated sour buttermilk for more than a few days, mother would use it to make a buttermilk based dish like morukkootan most of the time.  And, depending on the availability of required vegetables, she would make a delicious avial every once in a while.  Avial is a Kerala Malayalee dish and is not necessarily native to the  Palakkad Iyer cuisine.  A delicacy, it is prepared more as a part of any elaborate sadya (feast) on the festive days of Onam, Thiruvathira, etc.  Catching the fancy of South Indian restaurateurs, avial is often provided as an accompaniment to Adai - a thicker lentil based variant of Dosa. 

Avial:

 Almost any vegetable can be used to make avial.  Avial, by definition, is expected to be a mix of three or more different vegetables, the key of which are - Ash Gourd, Yellow Pumpkin, Yam, Raw Banana and Drumsticks.  You can also add beans, carrot, brinjal, snake gourd, green peppers and even bitter gourd (if you like the bitterness, most people don't).  No onions or bhindi please.

- Wash and clean the vegetables and cut them, with skin removed wherever applicable, lengthwise to about your little finger's dimensions.  Cook the vegetables in a deep pan with very little water and required salt.  I generally start with the vegetables that take more time to cook and keep adding the other vegetables at intervals,  to ensure the vegetables don't get over cooked.  E.g., start with ash gourd, snake gourd, raw banana, yam and drum stick.  After about 8 minutes, add the rest, except the green peppers.  You need to cook the green pepper strips only for about 3 minutes, towards the end.  Ensure that you cook with as little water as possible.

-  For half a gallon of cooked vegetables, grind a cup of grated coconut with a few fresh green chillies (subject to your tolerance) and half a teaspoon or less of jeera seeds.  Grind into a coarse paste.  (The jeera flavor should not be overpowering..  So add only a small bit.)

-  Mix the coconut paste with the cooked vegetables and let it come to a boil.  Reduce the flame.

-  Add a cup of sour buttermilk or beaten smooth yogurt and mix well.  I add a generous dollop of sour cream too.  Let the mix come to boil and remove it from heat before it starts boiling.  Sprinkle half a cup of grated coconut and mix well.

-  Add two sprigs of curry leaves and two spoons of coconut oil.  Cover with the lid.

The thick avial can be a main or side dish with rice.  Have it with adai, dosa or even fluffy pooris.

Note:  If you add more water or butter milk, the dish will become loose.  The loose avial can be had as a main dish (like morukootan) with hot rice and a porial on the side.