Amulet's Coffee

This following (about travel, and coffee) was written by Mahadevan Ramesh (RIP), published years ago in Soc.Culture.indian.

UNCLE IN THE SKY

My uncle, Mr. Venkataraman (known simply as Venky to some of you bboard folks) and aunt Parvati just landed up at Boston for the
very first time from India. They have come to visit their son
(the 'Boston Brahmin', ha ha). They were also going to travel
around in this land of milk, honey and to my uncle's chagrin, a
lot of meat. In just two short weeks afterward, they visited me
in Pittsburgh - they wanted to see the Pittsburgh Venkateswara
temple before they kicked off their tour. Actually they did go
to the White Mountains the previous weekend. 'There was nothing
there. Only trees' my uncle dismissed it "The car ride was the
best part". My uncle is an extremely thin gentleman, with a long
face and yards of nose. And looking at him, you won't believe
he sired six children. He is a sort of an existentialist. Every
incident, big and small, affected him deeply. His life is one
long journey from crisis to crisis. Several of his days have
been ruined because his daily newspaper was delivered half an
hour late. The first thing he did upon stumbling into my
apartment was to peek into my fridge, to make sure I didn't keep
any furry animals or their meat inside.
"Ramesh, you look just the same, like you were six years ago. I
don't even think you have had a haircut since then. Parvati,
look. Ramesh has already made some food. He is going to heat up
yesterday's leftovers in the microtava and give it to us. Ha ha"

"No uncle, I won't dream of doing that to you. That's not
yesterday's leftovers. It is more like leftovers from three or
four days ago. By the way, how was your flight ?"

"Don't ask me. It was an ordeal. It was very delayed even at
Bombay. All our relatives had come to send us off"
"I can understand that. They must be feeling thrilled about not
seeing you for another four months."

"Even Chotu was there from Hyderabad". Chotu, for those of you
who don't know my family, is my Uncle's (and my father's) kid
brother who is about fifty years old and weighs over two hundred
pounds. One could only speculate that he was perhaps small at
some point in his life. "Ramesh, You won't believe what happened
during the flight"

"Wait, let me guess, they tried to hijack your plane.."
"Ha haa, Parvati, Come over here quick, Ramesh is cracking those
funny jokes like he used to."

"Okay, let me guess again, they hijacked the plane, but refused
to take you as a hostage, because they knew you are a solid bore
and they didn't want to die a horrible death listening to you"

"As a matter of fact, there were so many security checks and
body searches that it was a relief to board the plane. The
moment I sat in my seat, I fell asleep. There was this dull
aircraft noise. I suddenly woke up and looked at your aunt and
she was wide awake. I said 'woman, grab some sleep. I'm telling
you. Or you will fall ill or something and cause problems to
your daughter in law'. She said she tried but couldn't sleep.
'Parvati, what do you want me to do, sing you a lullaby. Close
your eyes and count sheep'"

"You should have bought her a couple of beers. That would have
knocked her flat."

"You are a fool. Try growing up. Another half an hour later I
got up again and there she was staring at the first class area,
like an owl. Your aunt just could not sleep. She just wasn't
used to sleeping sitting up. I can sleep anywhere, any time,
even hanging upside down like a koala bear"

"Uncle, when you do that, do you wear a dhoti or pants ?"

"Shut up and listen. Finally, I decided to get up and was awake
for an hour and I was desparate for a coffee. I could even kill
for a cup of coffee. At last, they brought the coffee and
breakfast. But it wasn't our type of coffee. They brought the
cream and sugar separately. You know, I never drink coffee
without milk. I opened one of the creams, spilled half of it,
who knows how to open those packs, poured it and the coffee
looked dark still. I looked in my tray and found another cream,
opened it and poured it and it was still dark. I turned toward
your aunt and said 'Parvati, you hadn't slept a wink last night
or was it today morning, damn this time change, anyway, you look
pathetic. In fact, you look so horrible that had I seen you like
this some decades ago, I would not have married you. I know
coffee is your opium. But if you drink this non-South Indian
coffee your eyes are going to get stuck in a wide open position
and you will feel even more miserable. So let me have your
creams'. I added one of her creams to my coffee. It was still
black. Then I added another one and it was still black"

"Then what happened ?" I interrupted, unable to control myself.

"What could I do ? I had to drink it. My stomach was all upset.
By the by, (A little translation - 'By the by' is a typically
South Indian expression and every time I hear it, I go into
paroxysms of joy) what coffee do you drink ?"

"The kind that has caffeine."

"I meant the brand, you idiot. I think you have gone completely
bonkers. I ought to tell your father about this. Well anyway,
last weekend I was clipping coupons from the newspaper and I
found two coupons for the Maxwell Home coffee and I can give you
one and you can save 60 cents"

I was deeply moved by his gesture. "Uncle, you said something
interesting happened in your flight. Why don't you come to it"

"Wait. Not so soon. Then I told your aunt, 'Parvati, the
bathrooms are free now. Why don't you go and wash up. Once
inside the bathroom, it may feel a little queasy, especially if
you suddenly realize that you are miles above the ground. But be
calm and take your time. I needn't tell you, because anyway you
take hours to come out of bathrooms. Remember we are landing at
London in another 4 hours 42 minutes. Be back before then. She
went out, my poor wife and then after ten minutes she came right
back and I asked her 'Parvati what happened.' She said 'You may
get angry, but I forgot to bring my bindi (kumkum) and now I
cannot have the dot on my forehead'. I said 'Are you serious ?
You were preparing for this trip for two months and you forgot
such basic things. Search your handbag carefully'. She said she
gave it a thorough search.

'You women always have the plastic stick-on dots. What about
those ?' and she said she just ran out of them last month. Then
we searched our hand luggage carefully, the Sambar powder pack
fell off on the gentleman on the next seat and he was sneezing
uncontrollably. To add to the confusion, someone behind us kept
saying 'bless you bless you'. Then I said 'Can't you mix
haldi(turmeric) and something and get something quick and dirty
and apply it on your forehead?'. She said 'Yes, but of all the
masalas, I did not bring haldi'. I said 'How about the kumkum
Prasad we got at the temple just before we left. We did a
special pooja for our trip to be a success'. 'Yes, but we have
put them in the suitcase. Remember you asked me to put the
kumkum and the sacred ash in the suitcase because you didn't
want the customs people to think we are trying to smuggle some
controlled substance'. I said 'Now what are we going to do ?
You always do dumb things like this. I hope you remembered to
pack my striped underwears. As such you are looking very scary
without any sleep. Your eyes are red and bulging, you look like
movie actor Rajendranath. Now without your dot, you are going to
scare your grandchildren out of the airport. That's okay. You
don't have to have a dot. Most women in the world don't. Look
at that fifty year old cutie pie two rows from here. She doesn't
have a dot. You can always use your lipstick or something.
Where can I go and look for bindi in midair ?"

Then I turned around and I noticed another couple, just like us,
I went near them and overheard them. They too were talking in
tamil. So, I introduced myself and asked the woman for her
bindi. That woman thought I was weird. I said "No no no. It is
not for me. It is for my missus. I ain't no Kamalapati Tripathi.
Ha Ha. That man applies so much of it on his forehead that he
looks like somebody just shot him between his eyebrows." But our
problem was solved. In fact, I got to know them very well. I
have their address and phone number. He used to work for the
PWD. They are not any strangers. They have relatives in our
village. Maybe even, distantly related to us. They are going to
Montreal to visit their son and told me a million times to visit
them and I intend to. By the by, they said they would be
visiting Pittsburgh and I gave them your number and told them it
is okay to stay with you."

"So, uncle, this is what happened in your flight. I am surprised
you even came out of it in one piece..." Of course, the sarcasm
was lost on my uncle.

"Wait, I haven't even come to the most important thing. Then
they brought lunch. It was some North Indian thing. You know I
don't like that cuisine. But what can I do. I was going to eat
it. Food is such a problem if you step outside our beloved Tamil
Nadu. I told your aunt 'Parvati, you won't like this food. It
has garlic. I looked at the various items on the tray. There
was even mint chutney, although it wasn't in mint condition. Ha
ha. The vegetable looked intriguing, something like our radish.
I put my fork into it and pulled it out and when I was about to
stuff into my mouth Parvati said 'Wait, my soulmate, it doesn't
look like any vegetable. Maybe they got you meat by mistake'. By
now, I was shaking like a leaf. What a mistake. Yes, your aunt
was correct. I called the airhostess and even the gentleman
sitting next to us, the same guy who got the sambar powder in
his eyes, also told me it was chicken. Ramesh, I came this
close to eating chicken. I was so lucky that your aunt, even
when she was groggy and sleepy and hadn't had her coffee, still
saved me at the nick of time and then..."
"Interesting. But, now you really have to hurry up uncle. You
still have the London - Boston segment to cover and we don't
have all day. Remember, we still have a temple to visit. Come
to the punchline and let us hear the end of your story"

"Golly! Lord Venkateswara ! Ain't I no tellin' you ? THAT was
the story. I thought you were listening to me. As usual, you
were in your own dream world and didn't pay attention to your
own uncle. Now I'll have to go over the details again. Lets see,
were you with me when I told you about the coffee......"

****************************************
PS: By the by, only half the above conversation actually took
place (most of my uncle's part) If I really told him everything
I wanted to tell him, I would be dead meat by now. Nephewicide
runs in my family.

 

The MIL-DIL dramas over deficiencies in the coffee made by DIL, and how that can be correlated to the deficiences in the family the DIL was raised/trained has happened in lots of families. A good DIL will know what to say to the neighbor-lady, or to a fake-nobody on the mobile, when her MIL is in earshot: "no matter how I try, I could never make decoction like my MIL" is a great sentence, where "decoction" can be substituted with quite a lot of other things.

"Cafe du Monde" cans ( I posted a picture earlier) are now available in the fancier stores in Bangalore,Hyd and Chennai.

 

New Madras Coffee Filter Design:
Yesterday I posted on @Rihana's thread on IP about how I would go and look for new designs in Stainless Steel pots and pans. Today while browsing through amazon, I found this design in a Madras Coffee Filter. The Lower Decoction Receptacle has a kettle-nose to pour out the decoction.


While this is clever, it is done at the cost of not having a back-pressure (when the lower beaker of a Madras-filter is fitted tight, the air within it would resist the flow of coffee that drips down) to slow down the coffee drip. That would make it closer to Vietnamese Phin filter in its operation.

This coffee maker disassembled:


This design would certainly make handling it (when it has hot liquid within in) a lot easier. Just hold the ear, and tilt-pour the decoction.

Nice !! Comes in two sizes in the Rs. 800-1000 price range: link

 

Once things go on the internet, they are pretty much there, somewhere, for life. I was on alt.soc and soc.culture in a few newsgroups in them days. However, I am not going to link that nostalgia song "those were the days, my friend..yada yada...". These are better days, with links to media and various glizty doodads.

Recall of stuff is a curious thing. If I am just sitting around, in my "resting state" as it were, I am as blank as a newly formatted hard disc. Once someone gives me the correct search phrase, the right mnemonic, as @satchitananda had done in this case, whirr.....whirr.... the random access is activated, and some odd trivia that is connected to the phrase pops up in my mind. And voila, google for Mahadevan's story... and there it is.

Without the input of a correct search-phrase, I'd be at a loss. "We" often have this between ourselves: one would call the other and ask for help with remembering something, and we'd both jointly grope for the correct search phrase. Jointly groping for something is a pleasure known only to married kindred souls. Once the search phrase is honed, whatever we were looking for would fall out of the brains, or we'd get an idea of how to look for it in google.

In the recent congressional hearings with Sundar Pichai, it was all cleared out when one congress-person pointed out how if you search images with the word "idiot", the picture of Trump is ranked number one. [ I just tested and Lol'd]