Pongala

Last Saturday (February 19, 2011) myself and three other foreign tourists (all from Britain) attended what is called the world's biggest female gathering - Pongala. This once a year event really should be experienced. This was the second time I've gone and it is truly worth all the heat and smoke. Everyone is in a good mood and although there are thousands of women in the city without the noise, fumes and press of vehicular traffic Trivandrum seems like a totally different place.

Pongala, like so much of Indian life, is bursting with colour and energy. We started off at about 8:45 am by bus which got us within about 1 km of Trivandrum proper. We walked the rest of the way into the city and up MG Road to the Ayurvedic College (about 2.5 km from where the bus dropped us) and then turned around and walked back. The signal to light the fires underneath the pongala pots was given at about 10:45 am (relayed from the Attukal temple by walkie-talkie and loudspeaker) and within minutes great clouds of smoke began rising from the roadsides.

We were lucky to encounter a rickshaw driver with a big rickshaw (as he kept telling us) that was able to carry all four of us back to Kovalam Beach for a very reasonable 200 Rs (about $5 Canadian). We were back in the comfort of our cool, smoke-free hotel rooms by 1:30 pm. It was a great morning with lots of smiles and unforgettable images. Here are a few that I took.

Pongala Festival also overflows with vendors of all kinds of colourful items

Every colour of the rainbow can be found at Pongala

Hanuman (one of the Indian gods)

A particularly pretty offering in front of one woman's pongala hearth

The petrol station near the Kovalam bus platform

This scene is repeated all over the city - attendance is somewhere between 1-2 million (yes million!) women

So many smiles at Pongala

Lighting the hearth on the signal from the temple

Smoke begins to rise as the fires are lit

Before the fires were lit

The same narrow alley after the fires are lit - the heat was intense - I can't imagine cooking over these pots for a few minutes let alone for the 30-60 that it would take to finish preparing the pongala

I don't know what this man was doing cooking pongala but it was a photo op I couldn't pass up

Smoke rising over the city

Various organizations offer free food for all those attending pongala

The weekly splurge!

Since I save so much money on food by eating local and not drinking alcohol I like to splurge at least once a week. This takes the form of either a special dining experience or some kind of pummeling (or often both!). This blog post is about dining while I'll cover pummeling (by which I mean massage/reflexology - not kallaripayatu, Kerala martial arts) in a later post.

One of my favourite dining spots in Trivandrum is the Palm Top Restaurant at the Maurya Rajadhani Hotel. The restaurant has a mostly local food buffet (they do try and approximate some continental and Chinese dishes with varying degrees of success). I think it is good value at 260 Rs (just under $6 Canadian) for lunch. The setting is especially nice on the 5th floor of the hotel and open to the breezes and with spectacular vistas out over Kerala's capital city.

As well as the buffet there is a 'live station' that will cook up Indian breads for you to accompany your meal. At lunch there are just four varieties of bread available (roti, naan, uppam and bull's eye uppam - no idea what the latter is) while at dinner there is a long list including puttu (see earlier posting), masala dosas and omelettes. Not sure how much dinner and breakfast buffets cost.

Here are some photos that give you a taste of buffet lunch at the Palm Top.

Some not very exciting salads - definitely the weak point of this buffet

Two soups - cream of mushroom and hot and sour chicken

A variety of curries (both veg and non-veg)

looking from the other end of the buffet row

On the left dal (curried lentils) on the right 'sesame vegetables' (which I presume is an attempt at Chinese - quite tasty if not particularly authentic)

Left vegetable biriyani, right plain rice

Dessert - payasam (Kerala rice pudding), caramel custard, orange souffle and ice cream (vanilla)

View looking west toward the ocean

View east toward the Secretariat

 

Daily menu

I usually lose weight when I am in India - not because of gastrointestinal upset (knock on wood I have never been afflicted with Delhi Belly or in fact anything worse than a cold in all my travels to India) - but because a) the heat lessens my appetite, b) my 'fattening faves' (chocolate, cheese, desserts to name a few) are either completely unavailable here and/or rendered unpalatable by aforementioned heat and c) I am so cheap I squeak (though I prefer the term 'frugal' - much less derogatory) and thus tend to eat much the same as the local people which frankly has very little variety and thus I eat less and less at meals as time goes by.

My breakfast is the delectable puttu which has featured before in this blog.

Pen just included for scale - you don't eat it!

It is made from ground rice mixed with water, salt and grated coconut then put into a tube and steamed. Surely the puttu cooker is to our mind an odd looking contraption! I usually eat this with banana (smush the peeled banana between your fingers, break off a lump of puttu and take all to your mouth with your fingers) but you can also eat it with kadala which is a curry made of garbanzo beans (I think - this recipe from the tourism department refers to 'black bengal gram' but I think they are simply darkened, perhaps by roasting, chickpeas). In fact this combination (puttu kadala) is part of the dialogue of this cute ZooZoo ad from 2009 (at about 17 seconds).



Lunch is usually 'meals' or what would everywhere else in India be called thali. I eat thali at the Kerala Cafe which is a little outdoor kitchen stall with two 'dining' rooms - each about 10 feet square - that caters to mostly local men and women that work at Kovalam (in the hotels/guesthouses, selling fruit, waiters, masseurs, lifeguards). Very few people (in fact I can think of only one that I've seen - a shop owner whose wife probably packs his midday meal for him) bring a lunch and since most live too far away to go home for a meal they patronize places like Kerala Cafe where they can eat simple food inexpensively. Most of them run a tab and what they consume is written down in a book and totalled periodically.

The meal is served on a flat rectangular stainless steel plate with depressions - a cheaper version of the classic 'thali' (which just means plate) which is usually a circular rimmed plate in which individual dishes (katoris) are used (as in the picture below which shows the thali served at the Ariya Nivaas in Trivandrum). In the Kerala Cafe meal the largest rectangular depression is filled with rice (the fat, short-grained Kerala rice which I am not particularly fond of as I find it bland and usually mushy/soggy) and the 4 small round depressions across the top (each about the diameter of a tennis ball) are filled with 3 different kind of vegetable curries and a pickle. You also usually get a papad (very distinctively Keralan as cooked in coconut oil). If you want for an extra 10 Rs per item you can get fish fry or fish curry. The former is placed in a deck-of-cards-sized depression to the side of the 'rice depression' while the latter is served in a separate dish. Finally, you will be offered dal (lentils cooked with spices & onions to a soupy consistency), sambar or more (pronounced, as near as I can tell, more-ay, this is a yogurt-based liquidy stuff) to go on top of your rice. All of the depressions will be replenished as you empty them.

Thali refers to the larger rimmed tray/plate as well as the meal itself

So that's lunch dealt with. Dinner is usually one of two things - either chicken fry (which is delicious but audaciously greasy and unhealthy seeming - see picture below from 2008) or an omelette - with parottas (a particular kind of flaky, Indian flatbread). I accompany either of these with a big plate of 'salad' (see earlier shopping post).

Parottas on the left, next a bag of curry to go with the egg and on the right the chicken fry

Signs of the times

There is no denying that change needs to come in the way Indians behave on the roads - it seems as if everyone drives recklessly, speeding is rampant, safety measures are largely ignored even when legislated (see earlier post on traffic - in addition I constantly glance in vehicles and see few people wearing seatbelts) and roads are often in poor repair with hazards unmarked.

The urgency with which this issue needs to be addressed was brought to the whole city's attention on Thursday in a horrible way when a school bus being driven rashly by a young (19), inexperienced driver went off the road into a polluted waterway. Four children on board and their female carer drowned on the spot, one child died later and two more tots remain in hospital on ventilators and in critical condition. Even more tragically it is a story that has been heard many times in the state and the country - children of all ages travel to school in busses/rickshaws which are more often than not dangerously overloaded and driven by people with little experience or sense of responsibility.

I question whether signs like those shown below actually have any effect (especially with text in English!) and whether anything can be done to lower the carnage on India's roads that will likely only increase as the number of vehicles rises without a commensurate upward pressure on the citizenry to obey the rules of the road and be properly trained to operate motor vehicles (this includes both those who drive for a living and those owning private vehicles). Drunk driving is also a huge problem.

Shopping

For many people travel and shopping are inextricably linked but I must admit I don't care much for buying things. I rarely take gifts home for people (sorry folks - your bad luck to have such a mean and miserly friend!) and if I do they are usually of the practical or interesting type rather than souvenirs or the like. So my shopping while here is mostly limited to food (fruit and vegetables), utilitarian items (nailbrush, stainless steel plates) and - my one splurge so far - a presentable outfit in case I get invited to a wedding or fancy event.

Although you can certainly buy vegetables at Kovalam Beach in a number of small shops I prefer to shop in Chalai Bazaar - Trivandrum's main shopping area. I bought strawberries the other day - I had never seen them before in an Indian market. They were very expensive at 80 Rs (or just under $2 Can) for a 250 gm container. I thought they were from Kashmir but in fact they were from Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra. They were not very good but I had to try them to find out. In terms of fruit I most often buy grapes, bananas and guavas. I am especially fond of red bananas which are quite costly at about $1 Canadian per kilo (or about 20 cents per banana).

In terms of vegetables I buy things that I like to eat raw since I have no access to cooking facilities here. So carrots, radish (both red and white which are both long and carrot-like rather than globular - I've only seen the white - called mooli in Hindi and frequently served in restaurants in the North as part of a salad plate - in the market once), tomatoes, green peppers (not seen red, yellow or orange), peas (sold in 150 gm bags shelled and ready to eat - not as tender or sweet as those of my childhood memories but still yummy) and cucumber. I haven't bought cauliflower though I enjoy it raw since the stuff I see in the market always looks rather limp and unappetizing. Broccoli, celery, cherry tomatoes and snow/snap peas are not available in the market though I suspect that if you're running a restaurant in a 5-star hotel you'll know where to get them.

Here are some veggie photos from Chalai market.

The green veg is chayote squash (which I've seen but never bought in Canada), then radishes & finally potatoes

Rather than selling by weight these fixed price portions seem to be gaining in popularity

shallots

Tomatoes, bitter gourd/karela and onions

I never see yellow onions in the market - only these red/purple ones

Of course there is much more than just vegetables and fruit available for sale in the market. I don't usually venture into the meat and fish section and in fact most of the time when I've shown up the fish is all gone and I've not really figured out where the meat section is (and not really that interested in finding out either). The chicken section is full of live birds in cages who seem not to be disturbed by the execution and cutting up of a fellow clucker taking place very close by both temporally and spatially.

There are lots of other intriguing looking things for sale including various pasta products, spices, brass and steel implements and pretty much anything else your heart might desire. Clothes are also available in the market but I started my search for an outfit at Fab India - which is located in one of Trivandrum's tonier neighbourhoods - but didn't find anything that I fancied. A second stop at Parthas which is a huge, air-conditioned, snobby (in my opinion) outlet with overpriced but very nice items also proved fruitless. Finally, I found an outfit I liked for 1070 Rs ($24) at another shop down the street. This outfit is a salwar kameez and I'll include a photo of it at some later point.

The charming lions in the FabIndia compound

The staff at FabIndia told me on an earlier visit that the building was the childhood home of a Malayali film star but I can't remember which one (Mamooty or Mohanlal) - maybe this is an urban legend anyway :-)

In closing here are some additional shopping photos.

Clockwise from back left - dried peppers?, no idea, dried chilis, dried chickpeas, pasta

This lot was locked up and empty - no idea why - sure would be nice if people would park here instead of on main thoroughfare through the market (especially when they abandon their cars almost in the middle of the road!)

Colourful pasta

Getting the last of the fish!

Nano - bust or boom?

When I asked a friend from Rajasthan about whether he saw many Tata Nano's during a recent trip to Udaipur, Rajasthan, for his niece's wedding he told me that he only saw one and that people in the North (at least in his opinion) weren't buying them because they were too cheap. It wasn't their 'cheapness' in the way we perceive it that was the problem (as in poor quality leading to a lack of durability, frequent repairs and safety deficiencies) but, again in his opinion that their inexpensiveness meant that they didn't have the necessary cachet of a larger, more expensive vehicle (the Mahindra Scorpio for example).

I have seen quite a few of the cute little cars here in Kerala and it would certainly seem to make economic sense with fuel here being as expensive or slightly more so than it is in Canada (I think last time I went by a petrol station it was 62 Rs per liter - presently the exchange rate is about 44 Rs per $1 Canadian). The Tata Nano reminds me very much of the Mercedes Benz Smart car. For those of you who haven't seen one - here's an image of one I spotted in Chalai Bazaar (Trivandrum's main market).

A sunny yellow Tata Nano

 From a non-anecdotal point of view it seems as if the Nano has also been less than the revolutionary game-changer that was anticipated. This seems, according to this article, to be due to a combination of poor marketing, competition from other sectors (two-wheelers) and perhaps more than a pinch of smugness and overconfidence on the part of the Tata company.

Road madness

From a Western point of view traffic in India has always been extreme. In the good old days, when privately owned cars were less numerous, the pulsating stream of vehicles consisted primarily of two-wheelers (the Indian name for motorbikes), the big antique-looking-even-when-brand-new Ambassador cars and auto rickshaws with of course the occasional camel, cow, bullock cart and perhaps even an elephant thrown in for variety.

I haven't seen any of these slower moving creatures on this trip but the increase in personal cars and the shocking condition of MG Road have combined to turn it into a horrendously busy, pedestrian-unfriendly and unattractive stretch of road. First, for those of you that have never been to India I'll explain "MG Road". In almost every Indian city/town there will be a street named after the country's father - Mahatma Gandhi.

In the case of Trivandrum, MG Road stretches for about 4 km, roughly north to south, from East Fort to where the road ends at LMS Vellayambalam Road (although this

Google map indicates that the last 1/2 km or so of MG Road is actually called Salem Kanyakumari Road). I can't remember what MG Road was like in the 1990s when I was first here but it certainly has been under construction for the past five years since I returned to India in 2006 (after an 11 year absence). The view below, which looks south towards 'Overbridge' (where the road crosses the railway line) gives a rather inaccurate idea of what it is really like since it was taken on a Sunday when traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, is light and there are few cars parked on the edge of the road. I believe that the median running down the middle is new and it seems that work is ongoing to put a curb on both sides of the road (you can see it to the left of the pile of dirt on the left hand side of the photo). But so far there is precious little in the way of sidewalks though perhaps that is what will happen once curb installation is finished - but there seem to be a lot of obstructions to be removed before a sidewalk can be installed.

Walking along the edge of the road on a normal (i.e. not Sunday) day is not pleasant. The first picture below shows you some of the typical obstacles - unexpected ditches, piles of rubble and sometimes where there is sidewalk it is impassable or downright dangerous as the two following pictures show. The pile of gravel is on the pavement outside the Secretariat (state government building) and the sidewalk with the gaping holes is just before overbridge - imagine walking on the latter on a dark night, it's not hard to see how people can get hurt.

Last week this pile of gravel was at least twice as high

Imagine this at night!

The following pictures give a more accurate idea of the traffic on MG Road on a typical day and how there is no semblance of order - pedestrians cross as they wish waving their hand nonchalantly at vehicles (as if this simple gesture has some magical power able to stop a speeding car or bus - and judging by the reports almost daily in the newspaper of people being killed or seriously injured in vehicle-person collisions this is a significantly fallacious and dangerous belief), there are no lanes, cars park higgledy-piggledy on the road's edge forcing pedestrians either into the traffic or scrambling over the aforementioned obstructions and of course all this chaos is accompanied by the almost continual honking of horns and usually casual attention paid to traffic lights (by both those on foot and those driving).

Cars parked on verge force pedestrians into the path of traffic

People cross as they please sometimes with hardly even looking for traffic

As you can see there is no semblance of lanes or order in the traffic flow

I also assume from watching people completely disregard the "don't walk" signal that they do not understand or it has not been explained to them that the red man means 'don't cross now as it isn't safe'. I watched a man yesterday holding his hand out in a 'see me and let me safely cross' signal as a stream of traffic made a right turn from LMS Vellayambalam Road onto MG Road. The don't walk signal was displayed but still he stood there in the middle of the road, as traffic passed within inches of his feet, while I waited on the sidewalk. Within less than a minute the walk signal turned to the green man, the traffic flow stopped and I crossed safely.  I can only surmise that he didn't understand what the symbols meant (of course the less palatable and more likely explanation is that he understood perfectly but - like the majority of the people I see - doesn't seem to feel that these suggested rules of traffic behaviour apply to him).

The final thing I'd like to mention is the flaunting of the helmet law. As you can see in the final photo only about half of the motorcycle drivers are wearing helmets and NONE of the pillion riders. This is despite this being the law all over India. Apparently a prominent individual in Kerala is suing the government because although the helmet law is on the books the police actually tell people not to bother with it and this person's son was killed in a motorcycle accident that he would have survived if he had been wearing a helmet. Every day I see innumerable people with their helmet looped over the mirror, balanced on the bike between their legs or over their arm - I presume they will be able to tell a policeman that they have a helmet and thus avoid a fine (which is quite expensive I believe - around 100 Rs or about 2-3 hours pay for an average person).

Sunday Brunch Trivandrum Style

Decided on this hot day (mid 30s but feeling much hotter in Trivandrum versus the cooler, breezy conditions at Kovalam Beach) that I'd take the half hour bus ride in to Trivandrum and treat myself to Sunday Brunch at the Muthoot Plaza Hotel (one of Trivandrum's leading hotels).

I shamelessly use the Muthoot Plaza as a toilet stop when I am out and about in Trivandrum since a clean place to take a pee is a real find in the city. Today I was pleased to be able to tell the gracious doorman that I was coming to eat lunch not just to duck in and out and use the facilities. On one of these earlier visits I had noticed the sign for Sunday brunch priced at 750 Rs plus tax and including 'bubbles' (which I correctly interpreted as 'champagne' - quotes used since it was Indian champagne which of course is not really champagne at all). 750 Rs is  about $17 Canadian.

It was a pleasant meal but not outstanding. There were some tasty dishes - minted okra, a very nicely done vegetable biriyiani, roast chicken and some tasty breads. What was missing - well there was nothing that I would consider 'breakfasty' either Indian or non. There were no egg dishes or anything like idli or dosas which are South Indian breakfast options. Certainly no sausages, bacon or ham either although that's not so surprising. Also - no cheese which I had hoped for. There was a quite good baked pasta (farfalle as I recall) in a creamy sauce with corn and broccoli.

The champagne was quite good although it went to my head quickly - I am very out of practice and found a single glass quite a task to finish. Hopefully I won't regret that single flute tomorrow! The desserts looked better than they tasted but perhaps this is just my Western bias talking and of course I do have pretty high standards. Coffee was not good but frankly this is fairly common in my experience even at hotels of even higher status than the Muthoot. Such a shame because you can get a really palatable cup of coffee in Tamil Nadu (a state neighbouring Kerala) in almost any level of dining establishment for a reasonable price (probably 12-15 Rs or about 30 cents).

Here are photos of the salads, the desserts and the champagne bottle. More posts coming in the next day or two.

Salads - quail eggs in small bowl in foreground

More salads

Notice bottle says "Methode Champenoise" not champagne!

Desserts - full marks for attractive display