A Pakhwada for All Good Causes

 

I was visiting a Primary Health Centre in Baisi block of Purnea district in Bihar recently and came across this sign. It says 'Pariwar Kalyan Pakhwara', which means Family Planning Fortnight. The Pakhwada or fortnight, has become the favoured unit of time for many government supported interventions these days. We currently have the Diarrhoea Control Fortnights that‘s an effort to get health workers at all levels, especially in villages, focused on treating diarrhoea among under-five children with simple solutions like ORS and Zinc. Solutions that can save more than 200,000 children's lives every year. Policy makers understand that a two week focus will not rid the country of diarrhoea, but our public systems have become used to working in a “mission mode”. Building a habit for doing some basic things doesn’t come easily, so we try and get people to do things for a fortnight with a hope that some of those activities stick.

 

There’s a wide collection of Pakhwadas. The Measles Fortnights and the Intensified Immunization Fortnights. We even have 'Wajan Pakhwadas' or Weight Fortnights when we try and fatten up kids in 14 days. There are the ubiquitous and much dreaded Hindi Pakhwadas where people will spend much of their time flipping the pages of a Hindi dictionary to make sense of the memo they just got, hopefully adding to their vernacular word power in the process.

 

My favourite is the Janasankhya Sthirita Pakhwara (the Population Stabilization Fortnight) where we try and Stabilize the Population for a fortnight. For some reason I have this image of a billion people trying to stay standing on one foot, with one eye on a two-week calendar, counting down the days till they can go back to being themselves and procreating. And somewhere near AIIMS a digital billboard releases steam as the population clock takes a breather. If only that was true. Then we could just do a fortnight, every fortnight.

In Search of the Perfect Cuppa

Some people do it to get fit, some do it for the thrill of speed, some do it to test their limits of endurance, some do it for the love of gizmos and technology, and some do it to for the love of the outdoors. Everyone's got a reason to ride a cycle. Me? I do it for chai.

We scour the countryside for the perfect chai and chai-wallah. The tea shouldn't be too sweet, too milky, too strong, or too light, and it's best if it's really hot and made with cows milk. The neater the chai-wallah and the quieter the surroundings, the higher are our ratings. Over the years we've been lucky to find quite a few great chai spots, but still nothing that one could say was perfect. There's always a few shortcomings and as all good property dealers will tell you, it's usually all about location.`

Chai-wallahs like to in places they can find some customers, which means they like to be in busy places. So you won't find any of them in those tucked away patches of the Aravallis that are truly spectacular and scenic, or even in small villages or empty country lanes. There was this one chai-wallah on the road that leads to the Golden Green Golf Course that many of us said came close to being perfect, but he eventually shut shop probably because he figured out that running a chai shop in the middle of nowhere was not a viable proposition.

The idea of riding to a remote spot in the hills and making your own chai has been one that we've talked about for a couple of years. The ideal place in my mind was somewhere around the Echo Point we discovered last New Years Day near the New Mangar Mandir. Miles from anywhere, at the edge of a gorge, lots of rocks to serve as a fire place and as stools to sit, plenty of dried shrubs and trees for firewood, complete silence. Tranquil. And it was the destination for the 2014 New Years ride.

Seeing that I was set on trying my hand at campfire tea-making, my wife graciously agreed to sacrifice a pan and some party-ware including paper cups and spoons. I finally found that all those tea bags and sugar and milk sachets that I had scavenged from the complimentary coffee/tea makers in various hotel rooms could be put to good use. And having watched Bear Grylls light many a camp fire using nothing but chest hair, nails and teeth and true grit, I decided to take the easy way and packed lots of news paper for kindling, a box of matches and a Bic lighter for backup. 

The ride up to the Mangar plateau may have been a bit slower than usual, but I was so distracted looking for dry firewood along the way that I just didn't notice it. Amazingly all the wood we found was bone dry and Rajesh managed to get a fire going with one sheet of news paper and a single match stick. 

After that Saurabh played master chef and turned out an amazing concoction of English Breakfast, Early Grey and some regular Tetley tea bags that delivered a unique flavor. 

The accompaniments of Christmas cake, orange cake, digestive biscuits and Tiger glucose ensured that this was a New Years morning that no one was going to forget easily.

My New Year Resolution for 2014 - to create a map of chai spots across the Aravallis around Gurgaon and then go there and make and drink chai.....

Photos courtesy Abhinay Pochiraju

A Suitable Seasonal Greeting

I walked into our favourite local bakers yesterday evening because Medha and I decided to treat ourselves after having run some successful errands around town. The bakers was packed. Almost everyone was in there buying cakes, and when they were asked if they wanted a message written on it, everyone would say "Happy New Year".

There was this one guy, looking slightly agitated with the whole place being crowded, finally gets the attention of one of the shop girls. He points at a smallish chocolate cake. She says "four hundred rupees". He reluctantly nods. She takes the cake out of the fridge and asks him if he wants a message on top. He fixes her with a stare that says 'are you serious?' and then shrugs his shoulders his and with a dry grin says "see if Happy Basant Panchami fits on...."

Just in case it needs saying again. Happy New Year everyone.