Kheer-gaming

now for a small break from Russia......

we had a small puja at our hotel, New Vasantashram, last week......as much as my folks believe in it, though I'm not an aeteist, I despise pujas. You sit there, in front of an eye-burning fire, the smoke tearing your lungs apart, your body decked in finery and sweat......

after a few hours of sheer torture, it was time for 'pet pooja', ie, feasting.....we ate in banana leaves [instead of plates], heaped with generous portions of rice, puris, beans, 'saar' [spicy orange gravy to go with rice], raita, citrana [coloured rice]......hmmmmmm.............then it was time for dessert.....

my eyes sparkled at the mention of piping hot kheer, an excellent epilogue to the meal......the cook [a simpleton, I guess], poured the hot kheer on my banana leaf!!!!!! as much as I enjoy doses of video games, this was certainly not fun! I had to struggle to balance the liquid kheer on the leaf, without letting it touch the chutney or flow out on my pretty salwar-kameez AND try eating it at the same time ...... now that was challenge!

i struggled for ten minutes, rolling the leaf as a pipe, clipping the edge, tipping it this way and that, holding the struggling white vermilcelli and milk between my fingers [yes, there wasn't a spoon], while the 'bhatrus' [those who performed the puja] laughed, wobbled their hairy jelly stomach in bouts of roaring laughter.....

how i managed to get up with my legs asleep, without falling or spilling the kheer out is another story.....i won't bore you with that though!