THE FIRST TIME I FELL IN LOVE

When I was studying LKG, my teachers took us on an excursion to the famous snake park.   No, please don’t jump into any conclusions.  I haven’t fallen in love with snakes. In fact I have Ophidiophobia.  I wondered why they took us there in a bus.  There were so many in our school and neighbourhood!

It wasn’t snakes, but the snacks our teachers distributed in small packs during our visit that day that I fell for.  Plastic covers were unheard of those days and the food was wrapped in butter paper.  The pack contained some food, as big as my palm.  It was orange in colour and due to the oil, the butter paper became all the more transparent and the beautiful design was visible.  I just fell for it.  I didn’t know what it was.  The colour, the spiral design and the aroma were very appealing.  From my childhood, I don’t relish sweets.  But that day, knowing fully well that it was some kind of sweet, I decided to taste it.  The taste too was heavenly.  I learnt from my friends, that it was called “jangri”. (It is called Imarti in North India). 

The excitement, the image and the taste remained with me ever after. 

I always wondered how it was made!  My mother too didn’t know what it was made of.  My parents never liked getting cooked or processed food from outside.  On a few occasions, when my dad’s friends gifted assorted sweets during festivals, I tasted the jangri alone. 

We had a huge grinder stone at home and many of our neighbours used it to grind batter from lentils and rice, whenever huge quantities were required and during one such occasion in a neighbour’s house, a cook came and manually ground the batter for making jangris.  That was the first time I learnt about the main ingredient.  Till then, I didn’t know what it was made of.  The cook used our grinding stone to grind batter from Urad Dal (Black gram). He did the grinding without adding any additional water to the soaked lentils. He did it pretty fast and he made huge balls with the batter and put them in a tub of water.  The batter balls floated and then once it was finely ground, he took them again out of the tub and after straining the water put them back on the stone and added food colour and mixed it thoroughly.  He did not add anything else to it. He took the batter with him to my neighbour’s house.  I was very curious to see him cook, but I didn’t dare to ask my mother to permit me to go and watch the work. 

From the day I saw the cook prepare the batter, I wanted to try to make jangris at home.  My mother was very strict (Oh she is still very strict) and didn’t allow me to experiment in the kitchen.  (In fact, I first cooked in my neighbour’s house. I boiled rice on firewood and made chutney with curry leaves).

Years passed and I continued to dream, dream to make jangris. 

After I started working, most of my colleagues came to know of my love for jangris.  Whenever they made and bought jangris at their homes, they shared it with me.  Two of my colleagues’ mothers made them very regularly at homes and they discussed the recipe with me.  Gathering a lot of courage, I declared to my mother that I would make jangris at home.  Though she didn’t like me doing it, she permitted.  It was for a Deepavali.  Most of the times, it rains heavily in Chennai during Deepavali and that particular year, there was a cyclone and many trees fell down and there was a power cut.  I had soaked the urad dal and waited for the power to resume, to grind it.  I wasn’t fortunate that day and had to manually grind it.  It was very tough and somehow I managed.  But the batter consistency was not up to the mark.  I took a piece of cloth, made a buttonhole and took the batter into the cloth and tried to squeeze it into the oil.  Oh my God! I just could not do it at all.  The batter was leaking from all sides and the batter that was squeezed into the oil was going out of shape and were no where near the size, shape and colour of the jangris.  I some home finished frying them and soaked them in sugar syrup.  My mother loves feeding us, more particularly my brothers and soon after they step into the house, she would appear with a plate of snacks every time.  On that day, my second brother came and as usual, she filled a plate with my jangris (I actually have to give them a new name) and handed it to him without mentioning what it was. He started eating them and asked, why I had added colour to garelu and soaked them in sugar syrup.  (Garelu is donut shaped snack made with urad dal. It is also known as Vada).  After that episode, my mother categorically told me that I should stop my experiments in her kitchen.

I refrained from that activity for a while, but the desire has always been bothering me.  Recently, a friend of mine had shared a video of making jangris on Facebook and it looked so simple.  Today, unannounced, I tried making it and it has come out reasonably well. It took more than four decades for me to try out something I wanted to successfully.  I am happy.  My mother too is happy.  Soon after I finished making them, my brother visited us with his friends and my mother enthusiastically offered them jangris.  Success!  They have eaten and have recognised them as jangris!

P.S.  Sorry for the deceptive title