Jesus on a Chapatti

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I have a bad case of cabin fever and blanket rash. The moody mountains, for so long hidden or drawn zen like against the horizon pulled up their shades the other day and glared down the valley in a stony slate coloured stare. Distant winds whipped in from Tibet or somewhere further, wrapping themselves like candy floss around the highest peaks while lamb like cumulous clouds flocked on the higher hills.

The force of the gaze of the gods turned the weather cold and silenced the birds in the trees, the trees on the hillside whispered against the approaching wind. Indra beat his drums in some further off place than even Tibet, bruising thunderclouds that massed and rolled around the valley.

Spring flowers bent their heads against the hail, shivered deep in their petals while trees reached further into the sky with fresh tipped fingers drinking rain. The mountains removed themselves from public view and I stayed wrapped in a blanket.

FOR A WEEK.

Now this particular area of the Himalaya is said to hold extremely magical spiritual powers, people come from all over the world and even India to seek the sacred sanctuary of God’s Backyard as we affectionately call Kumaon. Some practise very hard meditations or tapas (tapas are heat generating penances that are supposed to inflame the gods into granting your petition) in between cafe lattes at Mohans. Others prefer to wait for divine intervention, being somewhat directionless and undisciplined. I belong to the second category, my meditation is on the connection button as I watch the icon spin uselessly like car tyres stuck in the sand. My heat generating exercises involve a complex mantra of swearwords gathered from all over the world and a few tantrum asanas. But it seems to have worked because the other morning I Got A Sign.

The Mountains appeared clothed in majestic white early one morning as I pondered alone in my cabin, I took it as a sign that I was on the right path with my fevered thinking.

I am going spiritual.

I plan to go deeply into the zen of the chapatti, to explore life and the mystery of life from a ball of dough. The chapatti will be my meditation and my koan. When I do japa, I will tell beads of chapatti dough instead of prayer beads. I will hold classes on Enlightened Breadmaking. Seekers will flock to my classes and learn everything they need to know about their mysterious role in the larger scheme of things by making chapatti.

My devotees will become fully initiated into the Art of Enlightened Breadmaking. I will ordain a Puri Baba, a Paratha Baba and a Bati Baba.As we grow across the world, I expect I will find a Croissant Baba and a Pan au chocolate Baba as well. I will arrange it so  that even Oprah cooks chapatti  on daytime TV while Nigella Lawson gnashes her perfect teeth and her agent wonders how she is ever going to get sex back into the Soul Kitchen.

It will be the saving of manind, I imagine. Simple leavened bread instead of that genetically modified poison wheat bread wrapped in plastic. Chapatti can save us from food allergies and Monsanto and snatch our souls from the abyss. The chapatti will become a symbol of the Neo New Age, just as the spinning wheel became the symbol of the liberation of Indian people from the British colonisers.

And people can call me Chapatti Baba, I think it has a nice ring to it, don’t you?

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I am all in favour of eating local style when I am traveling. Some of my fondest memories of life on the road lead me back to feasts shared with many a generous host. There was that mysterious meat served with love in a remote village in Laos, (my non Veg lover politely declined the offering, but I was compelled by politeness and diplomacy to mix it in with my sticky rice and declare it delicious), there was the dish of rubbari rich with cream and coconut in a humble (soon to be displaced by the Narmada damn scheme) farmhouse deep in the dust laden heartland of Madhya Pradesh, haldi ki subzi cooked over a fire in the desert and sweet prasad offered all over this nation of foodies, fresh from the blessing of the gods.
For a vegetarian, food is often the less appealing side of travel. Vegetarian options are listed in the Boring side of the menu, there is usually little to get the tastebuds leaping with delight and curiousity. Worse, it’s often more expensive than dishes that include meat! At least that was my experience in Cambodia recently. No doubt meat is cheap there, as it is the staple of most meals. I would trawl the street markets looking for vegetarian street food. Fish? No. Chicken? No. Pork? not at all. Ok then take some eggs. Actually i dont do eggs either. Settle for fried rice or noodles and vegetables. Eat one day and have diarrohea for two. Even then I didn’t manage to loose any weight, possibly because I supplemented my diet with almond croissants and lemon tarts. One day lying in a hammock on a tropical island, where the seafood was so fresh that it literally leapt into the boats that plyed the ocean, I fantasised about the smell of chapatti on the pan. Falling deeper into the trance of a Travelers Food Fantasy, my tastebuds reminded me of crisp paratha, the sour tang of raita and the nutty aroma of ghee on a warm pan. While my stomach rumbled and roared like a coal train heading to port, I counted the days until my return to India.
I remembered the early days of travel in India when chai latte hadn’t even been invented, when I ate in Thail joints because restaurants for tourists where were you got the worst food. (I mean who comes to India to order lasagne? Lots apparantly!) The motto for safe eating back in those days of the dianasour was to eat what the locals knew and loved best. The strategy behind that was that a fast turnover of popular food kept your order fresh and on the side of hygenic safety. I remembered one day in Dharamsala when my stomach, overwhelmed by the energy of Indian food, cried out for something simple. I gave instructions to the waiter to bring me a tomato sandwhich. In the face of his confusion, I described how to make it. Two slices of plain white bread, butter, some sliced tomatoes. He went away and came back with the cook. Again I described the construction of a tomato sandwhich. When it eventually arrived on the table, I experienced the kind of rush that comfort food brings to the soul and the body.
These days there is a deeper sense of satisfaction that comes from soul food, now I make my own chapatti and even if they are never as round and as puffy as I would like them to be (I learned to make chapatti from th sadhus who prefer thick farm style chapatti and had no time for poofy light fluffy puffs of bread) and even if they look more like pacmen than perfect discs, in the making of them I am transported across time to the houses and hearths where I have shared and cooked chapatti all over India. I remember the way my Guru ji, the wild and naked Chandon Giri Naga Baba would work in tandem with me as we cooked the one meal of the day that the sadhu allowed themselves. I remember walking home with freshly milled chuki attar and floating on the aroma of it, cooking chapatti on the sadhu’s holy fire, the dhuni with a  rolling pin in one hand and a stick in the other to chase the maurading monkeys away with, I remember eating thick farm style chapatti at sunset on a farm in Rajasthan and sharing tiffins on trains where the chapatti were folded like lotuses. All these memories get worked into the dough of my chapatti and the taste is as sweet as the memories.

 

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