All the fuss about a cup of tea (totally worth it)

It’s my mom’s birthday and I thought I’ll do all the work in the kitchen today. I did the dishes, we went out for lunch and I decided to make evening tea. I make tea for my dad and myself everyday at 3pm after an afternoon nap, as we have both retired from work and are chilling at home. I make substantially good tea. But today, it tasted horrifyingly bad. I have never made tea for three people before. Besides, it was the first time I made tea after going to a tea tasting event at Infinitea, and I don’t think I can make nice tea anymore because what I had at Infinitea raised the benchmark to something I can’t reach.

This awesome picture was shot by a talented young man named Shaam Somanna

You must be thinking, oh what’s all the fuss about? It’s just tea. Well, whether you’re thinking so or not, I think making beautifully blended tea is an art that requires a good deal of practice. You boil it too much, it gets acidic; you add too much milk, it loses its flavour; you make it too watery and it sucks. A Geisha goes through years of practice before making the perfect tea, imagine! (I’ve been reading Memoirs of a Geisha a bit too much.)

Anyway, I have always had tea at places where they first slam a steel tumbler onto the granite slab, pour some tea decoction into it, then take a huge ladle, scoop out a good amount of milk from a barrel and lift the ladle as high as their hands can go, while tilting the ladle and pouring milk into the tumbler simultaneously. This tea usually costs around Rs.10.

At Infinitea, I had a completely different experience. Not like I’ve never been to a tea parlour before, but I’ve never really been told what and how exactly to go about drinking tea. For instance, I never knew that green tea goes best with lemon and lime mousse. Forget the flavours. I never even knew that the textures of mousse and tea go well together! So here’s what the menu for the Winter Tasting evening looked like.

Winter Tasting. Sounds too fancy no?

 

Since it sounded so fancy, I decided to dress up like a fashionable socialite and go. By my standards, what with the bottle green pants, a belt, a MK bag and everything, I was as fashionable as possible. But by normal-ish Mount Carmel College standards, I was dressed in daily college wear. Hehe. I felt good about myself anyway, and that’s what counts.

Salted caramel butter macarons and lemon macarons. Sanjana, I ate one for you!

The evening went really well. Nuvena and I spoke to the founder of Infinitea, Gaurav Saria, for over an hour. He is an ambitious, happy, married chap who loves his tea, and doesn’t take the easy way out as a chef. If it’s going to give him better results, he doesn’t mind having to go a notch farther to reach his goal. He gave us one of the first few batches of his fresh macarons. They were incredibly tasty! Finger licking good, if I may steal KFC’s tagline. “Most people in Bangalore make macaroons. That’s the easy way out. I have been working on these fellas for years and still haven’t perfected them,” he said about the macarons. That’s how much he knows he stuff. Who knew macarons and macaroons are different things! For many minutes there, I thought he was just pronouncing it wrong. Haha! (Macarons are delicate, meringue sandwich cookies made with egg white, sugar and almond flour. Macaroons, are made with egg whites and coconut. No almond here! Macarons are 2,000 times more difficult to make!)

This is the picture I shot when this picture was being shot.

The five teas served to us were top-notch, perfectly concocted and started from light teas and ended with the quintessential masala chai. Every tea tasted surprisingly different, and was made from fresh tea leaves, as opposed to packaged tea powder or tea bags. Did you know that the stuff in tea bags is just the dhool (dust) that remains after the actual tea leaves are packaged? Sigh… We were taught that good quality tea leaves are harvested, sun dried, ground in slow moving grinders, that just touch the tea leaves a bit, just enough to shred them a bit, then sent into rollers to be shaped and come out as ready to use tea leaves. We tasted tea made from oolong tea leaves. (And here I was, thinking Oolong is just a pervert character in Dragon Ball Z!) Oolong is one of the finest qualities of tea apparently, originating from China. The British actually brought it from China and planted it here in Darjeeling when they ruled. Now, India is the largest grower and consumer of tea, and the second largest industry, worth around Rs.10,000 crore! Man! There’s SO much to learn about everything in the world.

Anyway, I must say, the delicacy that accompanied every tea was every bit as delicious and rich as it sounds on the menu. I could feel the lentils of orange and lemon in the respective mousses burst in my mouth with a juicy flavour. The Belgian Chocolate Pot de Creme was out of the world! It was a little creamy bit of heaven. Every sip of tea helped wash out the flavour of the accompaniment, so every bite tasted refreshing.

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Gryffindor socks

I find such evenings very entertaining mostly because I love to observe people. There was a little girl sitting opposite us. She held a Harry Potter book in her hand, wore a Half Blood Prince t-shirt and Gryffindor socks. I would have absolutely envied her when I was her age. I struck a conversation with her and she said her favourite house was Slytherin. Haha! She was adorable.

It’s on days like this that I learn to appreciate the knowledge other people have, of things I’ll probably never learn. Did you know that it’s good to not wash your tea cup with soap because tiny particles of the soap remain even after you wash the cup off? It’s good to let the tea stain stay, because it’ll season your cup and make your tea taste better! Every minute topic has so much to learn about. So on this day, I learnt that tea is not just tea. Of course, it tastes awesome when your mum blends it with all the love in the world, but there’s an infinite(a) amount to learn about it. : )

That’s that. It’s what a real tea party looks like!

Thanks for dropping by! And thanks Nuvena, for making the evening happen! : )
Thank you Gaurav for hosting such a fun evening. And thank you Shaam for these awesome pictures!

Until next time.

Kan’t get enough

No, I’m not trying to sound ‘kool.’ I think it’s the most senseless thing to do, replacing ‘c’ with ‘k.’ It’s so wrong. Anyway that’s my pun on Kan, the folk band from UK. A month ago, I had never heard of them, but the awesome job that I have, introduced me to the band, let me interview them and go for their performance, and trust me, it was the HAPPIEST concert of my life.

Click on the play icon to listen to them while you read this post.

I’m sure most of you have never heard of Kan. They play Scottish folk music, and a few of their pieces sound surprisingly similar to Indian folk music. I wasn’t too thrilled about interviewing them in the beginning, until I found time and opened a youtube video of them. I have never fallen in love with something so easily before. This is the video I saw.

The band mainly concentrates on flute and fiddle sounds, played by Brian Finnegan and Adrian O’Rourke. They are so energetic and tireless. My jaw dropped and I could never fix it back all through the show. It’s as easy as breathing for them. (Not breathing in Bangalore, of course. It’s as easy as breathing fresh  air in, say, Iceland). Jim plays the drums and I have never seen any drummer remain so subtle and in the background. It’s difficult to control your energy and strength while playing such a loud instrument I’m sure. Ian plays the acoustic guitar. I can’t believe I have the same instrument he does and he can produce that kind of sound. Everytime I pick my guitar, I say “Oh it doesn’t have a cut, I can’t reach the high notes. I need another guitar. Can’t play this ever,” and put it away. But you must see the stuff he can do with the guitar. It’s uncanny, really. These guys are just too good. Ian did most of the interacting with the crowd, perhaps because his accent was most easy to understand. Brian is Irish, and another member Scottish and two from Manchester and elsewhere. I forget.

Coming to their music. I don’t know where to start. They begin all their songs with a slow, deep intro and somewhere in between, they suddenly pause. That pause! It’s the most magical pause. And suddenly with unbelievable coordination they pick up speed and go crazy with their instruments. They push themselves to the limit and give you goosebumps until you shudder. It’s insane. Nuvena, who initially didn’t want to come to the show with me had her eyes were brimming with tears at the end of every song! (So were mine, but I’d rather speak of someone else’s tears). She loved them so much, she bought a Kan CD and we played it all the way home in the car. The next morning I couldn’t wait to get back in the car to listen to the CD again. They’re that addictive! They’re the best ensemble ever.

You must listen to this song called (I think) 90 mile drive. It was one of the first few times they were performing it. Adrian even said they never get it right. But that intro. Oh my god! You won’t believe they’re making those beautiful sounds from their instruments. It’s the kind of music that makes you feel good about life. Their song One, Two, Three, their only romantic track, sounds like a lover trying to convince the woman of his life that everything is going to be alright and there is nothing to worry about. It’s like the music speaks to you. It’s the kind of music that will make you say “To hell with rock music!”

Brian Finnegan, especially, was like Lord Krishna come to life. (I don’t mean to say Krishna is dead you religious people. Relax.) He even crossed his legs and held the flute just like Krishna for one song. Before every song, he’d fish out a different flute and stand modestly in front of the mike. They were so sweet, they even said “thank you for listening.” I mean, which international band would say that. They said they were scared before performing 90 Mile Drive and I think Brian said “Go baldies!” to themselves. It was such a cheerful night!

I recorded some of their music on my phone, so I can relive it. I don’t think I’ll share it here because I’m ordering appletini and you can hear all that. I can’t believe I was so mesmerised by the band that I blindly ate a pasta full of yucky mushrooms without realising. It’s going to be very difficult for the next live performance I attend to live up to this one. I just loved every second of it.

A big thanks to Nuvena who be’d a sweetheart and took me all the way to Whitefield on the murkiest roads that I took her in, following Google maps that showed me bicycle routes for a Volkswagon Polo. Hehe.

Here are a few questions from the interview I had with them, if you want to read. They came to India as part of the Bristish Council’s Folk Nations programme and taught underprivileged kids nuances of Scottish music in Mumbai and Kolkata. They had some sort of a master class in Bangalore. I’m so glad they came here.

• Have you ever been to Bangalore before? What are you looking forward to in the city?

[Brian]: I’ve never been to Bangalore. Someone said it’s a great city for music, good vibes and a good atmosphere. Everyone tells us it’s very different from Kolkata and Mumbai.

 

• It’s lovely on your part to teach underprivileged children. What exactly do you expect to teach children in India? Will you actually be teaching them how to play the instruments or will there be a bit of theory as well?

[Brian]: We’ll go to the workshop with a piece that we’ve written and performed. Then we’ll talk about the instruments – about whether they’re traditional or modern, where they come from and different styles. We’ll talk about our arrangements and basically just be interacting with the kids. If they want to play an instrument, we’ll encourage them to come and play the flute or whistle or guitar or drums. So it’ll be pretty organic.

 

•  You have collaborated with Indian musicians such as AR Rahman and Shankar Mahadevan. Can you tell us a bit about that? What was the experience like?

[Aidan]: I’ve worked with some Indian musicians in the past; Trilok Gurtu and Shankar Mahadevan at Celtic Connections festival in 2010. And I’ve also collaborated in the past with the master violinist Sharat Chandra Srivastava. They were all wonderful experiences.

[Brian]: Jim has done a lot of work as an orchestral percussionist, and has performed film scores live by Nitin Sawhney and, recently, A R Rahman. I toured in India in 1998 and played with Rajendra Prasanna and Sunil Kant Gupta, and it was a hugely inspiring experience for me, and influenced quite a lot of my music.

 

•  Do you think folk music, on a global scale, is being pushed away to remain in the background? What is the global scenario like?

[Aidan]: Folk music in Scotland, Ireland and England is at an all time high. You hear a lot of folk music on mainstream radio now. I know a lot of purists would like the music to remain as a museum piece, but I think it has and always will evolve. And I don’t hear it becoming homogenised. If anything, more people are digging deeper and listening to the raw folk music that’s become more available through online archives, etc. This is an exciting time for the type of music we play and we’re embracing it.

 

•  You have performed all over the world. Which country, in particular, do you think embraces folk music most easily?

[Brian]: I think these days music travels much faster than it used to when I first started playing music 20 years ago. We just came back from Japan, where we did two sold out concerts in Tokyo. It was our first time in Japan. People are understanding folk music and world music a lot more now and it’s travelling. So places like Australia, America and Canada are very exciting places to go and play. And for me, coming home to Ireland is always extra special. No matter where I go and play, coming home to Ireland is always a different vibration.

 

•  It has been a while since you released Sleeper. Do you have any other albums coming up?

[Aidan]: We’ve got some new tracks which we’ll be playing in India. We plan to record our new record next year, so I think there should be something new out next year.

 

 

Bengaluru FC – My first home team

Nischal is going for the Bengaluru FC vs Mohun Bagan AC match tomorrow. Here are his thoughts on Bengaluru taking part in the I-League and why buying the most expensive ticket for the match is completely worth it. 

The Mumbai based JSW have ensured that football fans in the city get what we have been craving for years! You see, usually no one deserves anything in sport or life. But you know what; football fans in Bengaluru do deserve a slice of full fat goodness after years of frustration of watching other cities have teams and talent in our city go wasted. Sunday is a massive, massive day for all of us. I’ve never seen tickets sell out so quickly at the stadium before! Not even when the VIP stand tickets were as cheap as Rs. 50 a couple of years ago!

Well, we’ve aced the summer and the pre-season by signing the captain of the Indian football team amongst a host of other Indian superstars. The four foreign players are no mugs themselves. Defender Johnson comes from the very physical English league and will have no trouble fitting into the heart of the defense. A couple of promising local youngsters have been signed on as well. Shelton Nickson (U-17), being one of them. Heading into July, the club announced Ashley Westwood as the clubs first head coach. Westwood, a former Manchester United youth player and former Blackburn Rovers assistant manager seems like the perfect fit. Those in the know, have nothing but positive things to say about the Englishman. The squad seems to enjoy training under him. Also, the introduction of the ‘Swear Jar’ is something that has caught the eye.

Though setting up of a local youth academy is pre requisite to play in the premier competition, in the long run, it is extremely good for the youngsters in the city as there are only a few academies setup to serve this purpose. The stadium has got a face lift as well and looks like it will be a top notch venue for football and might be in consideration to host the FIFA U-17 World cup in 2017.

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The pictures were taken from Bengaluru FC’s facebook page.

The host of public appearances made by the team for a variety of reasons has helped in creating this massive buzz around the city. Open training sessions and visits to various hotspots to interact, have helped to establish a lot of hype outside of the social space as well. The support for the club is swelling to unbelievable numbers, judging by the incessant posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter. The club even has a tie up with Bookmyshow so fans can buy their tickets online, which are priced starting from Rs.30, 50, 150, 300 and 450. And Arbor Brewing Company is going to be the home pub for the season, telecasting games and selling merchandise. It’s going to be a kickass scene for football followers to interact and probably get together, support the home team and perhaps play a bit of football!

This is the most excited I’ve been about the I-League! Ever! I’ve been longing for a local team to support and Bengaluru FC is the answer. A revamped stadium, a squad brimming with quality, an experienced coach and thousands of Bengalureans behind them has all the makings to dominate the local scene for the next couple of weeks. This makes shelling out for the most expensive ticket at the Bengaluru stadium worth it. It has been the talk of the town for a few weeks and the excitement is palpable and it all culminates this Sunday at 4. Our time is now! C’mon Bengaluru!!

Match updates – The I-League kicked off today, with three matches taking place. The day saw defending champions, Churchill Brothers SC, lose 0-1 to Salgaocar FC in a Goa derby. Mumbai FC and Sporting Clube de Goa drew 1-1 and Pune FC humiliated Mohammedan Sporting club with a 3-1 win, away from home. That puts Pune on top of the table, but it doesn’t make sense to look at the table already.

We shall wait for tomorrow and see what happens! Until then.

What can we do about rape?

I got sucked into the whole rape business that’s doing the rounds. But I think I’m a bit too insensitive to write about such issues. Rapes, sexual abuse, molests, happen every single day in every nook and corner of the city and no one can do anything about it. Yeah, well, you’re probably going to go all Rang-De-Basanti on me and say, ‘Koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota hai, use behtar banana padta hai. You make a change, Light candles. Protest. Strike. March. Stop eating, etc.” I honestly don’t think all this makes a difference at all.

There is absolutely no point blaming police officers or politicians or the city’s corporators for not installing enough street lights. Note that I’m not blaming the Bombay girl. I’m not even saying she invited it. (When it’s a case like this, seems like everyone is waiting to pounce on some fault that a writer commits). I’m not being a defeatist either. All I’m saying is there is no point in all this outrage after the incident has taken place.

Sure, you can probably create enough noise and make the government have the accused castrated and hanged, hoping to instill fear in future potential criminals. But if the rapists are drugged/drunk, they’re hardly going to think about laws and stop themselves. I am a photographer and a journalist myself. I know the country is unsafe as hell for girls in the dark I would never venture out into abandoned buildings in the dark without protection like pepper spray or my metal hair stick (the one Vidya Balan uses in Kahaani).  My alertness comes instinctively having lived in this country for 22 years. Of course I have been groped, molested, etc. I consider it as normal as tripping over a stone. But I make sure i crush the stone, however hard it is. It’s been a while since any guy dared to touch me and not because I dress like a man or something. I dress rather well, I think. I probably give them mean stares or just plain angry looks. I don’t know.

See, there is nothing wrong in women wanting to be able to feel free and roam around as they wish. But until the country is ready for such a thing you must do your bit to protect yourselves. Even if you have a guy with you, if five men come upon the two of you, the guy is useless. My friend, who used to walk with me on dark abandoned roads (my journalism school was situated in one such foresty, shady, location), used to tell me, “if more than three guys ever try and attack us, you just run.” He isn’t a wuss. He is big, strong and hungry to throw a few punches all the time. He was just being practical when he said that.

But having said that, it is a poor state of affairs that a woman has to wear a chastity belt to protect herself. My journalist friend, Fishy, who also happens to be a feminist says, “By all means we must take precautions, just like we would when we’re in danger, bu the point is, we must have strict laws. If, in spite of that, such criminals aren’t contained, then it’s because they know at the end of the day, the survivor will have to bear half the blame. They know the society will only tell girls to be more careful. Do I really need to put my career, my assignments and passion, all on hold because men can’t control their di***?”

Yeah, she’s one of those angry people. It’s annoying because now we have new rules in office. The editor has told the girls not to cover events that are too far away and to always travel with four or five people and not just the photographer. She said, “It’s foolish to try and be brave these days. I’m not risking it.” Well, she does have a point. No one wants to be held responsible for such issues. But I’m a loner and I don’t want to be with five other people during parties. Hmpf.

Another colleague said that they should legalise prostitution in the country. It’s like legalising marijuana right? Reduces the consumption of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and whatever people are consuming these days. Legalise prostitution and there will be fewer rapes. But if sex is all these people want, I don’t think they’d gang up against a girl and commit such cruel acts. These men are like Prince Joffrey! They have a psychological disorder. It’s more than just sexual violence. In fact, it isn’t sex at all.

Well, I can’t really think of cruel things to do to punish these men. But if any man lays his hands on me against my will, trust me, I have watched enough Game of Thrones, to feel normal enough slitting someone’s throat and sticking their heads up on a spike and displaying it to the entire city.

Assholes.

You can buy pepper spray here. Or buy a pocket knife. Or a sword.  Or an axe.
I’d pick the last two. I can look good, like I’m from the Middle Earth or from Westeros and I can feel safe and protected.