In Hinduism, there’s a God for every day of the week. But in Delhi, it is the Shani Maharaj (Saturday God) that the beggars exploit the most.
It could be because it heralds the beginning of a holiday for most people here. People show greater inclination to spend on a weekend.
Take a look at the pic on top. Doesn’t he look cute?
Sometimes, instead of placing an object like this near a busy road, Shani Maharaj’s followers go from door to door for donations in his name.
Some people give money while a few pour mustard oil in their kamandals…call it faith or religion or fear, whatever you want. But it is definitely the power of God!
Daan (the act of giving) is the part of everyone’s religion and this is what the beggars rely on.
For those of you who don’t know anything about dal wadis, let me begin by telling you that they are sun-dried balls of paste made from pulses, herbs, and spices. They add delicious flavors when you use them in sabjis.
I had always used store-bought wadis in the past. Whenever I stored them for a long time, they always got infested with worms; maybe because they were not freshly made and already close to the end of their shelf life.
Because of the wide variety of spices inside the wadis, I always thought making of dal-wadis at home was a long drawn-out affair with so much to do; washing , soaking, roasting, frying, grinding, sun-drying, keeping away the birds and the rodents, etc. Not meant for regular office goers like me.
But after watching an urad dal wadi video on nishamadhulika.com recently, it looked so easy. Even the sun-drying part didn’t seem to be such a big issue any more.
I finally took the plunge in December 2020 and made the wadis as per the recipe in the video. The grinding part, I discovered, is easy, because of the electric mixer-grinder. The real challenge came during drying as it was the peak of Delhi’s winter.
Fortunately, during those 4-5 days, the clouds stayed away and the wadis dried up completely.
Here are the pics.
1. i churned the soaked dal in a mixer-grinder with roasted and powdered spices and grated ginger.
2. I made small balls of this paste and kept them on oiled plates to prevent them from sticking. I kept the plates in the sun daily for 5 days. Once they were completely dried, transferred them to an airtight jar for storage.
I used some of them recently in a mixed veg. dish. It tasted heavenly!
Here is the link to that Nishamadulika.com video that triggered my journey to the world of vadi making.
The sight of a child nuzzling its head against its mother’s neck is so touching! The child needn’t even be human. With Mom around, the child has nothing to fear.
May God bless this person who created this little Eden by the roadside outside Uttam Nagar bus terminal in West Delhi. It gives a pleasant relief to eyes while walking on this crowded road to the Metro Station.
These days, the guavas that we see in Delhi’s markets are unusually large. The sight of those luscious guavas sitting on their glossy, designer covers on the fruit carts is so strikingly tempting that you find it hard to pass by without buying them. See the pic on top and you will see what I mean.
The ones we brought home recently, however, turned out to be sour and no one wanted to eat them.
I don’t like to waste food, so i experimented with the idea of making a chutney with them.
I removed the seeds and churned the three big guavas in a mixer-grinder with some water, lemon juice, green coriander leaves, and green chillies. I added some ginger and whole cummin seeds too. You may skip them, because I had to add sugar later to neutralize their bitter taste.
The chutney that took birth from this experiment was delicious with all the right flavors, sour, sweet, and tangy, to tickle the senses. A few pieces of guava remained and refused to turn into paste. They added to the charm of the chutney.
See the pic below. Do try it out and let me know how it turns out for you.
You can try this recipe with other fruits too that are not sweet enough, such as apples, mango, plums, strawberry, etc.
I did it, finally, in January 2021, at the peak of winter; after several summer months of trial after trial in 2020 of making coriander seeds germinate, all in vain. See the photo on top. I feel so proud today!
It goes to prove that in nature, everything happens when the time is right.
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