Indian Takeaway

by Hardeep Singh Kohli

  Unfortunately what I didn’t know was that Sanjay had fessed up to the plot as soon as he was asked by his mum. She didn’t even interrogate him, question him or gently beat him. She asked; he answered. Pavittar had the full story, and she had told my parents. They already knew what had happened, they just wanted me to admit it. But out of my misplaced sense of allegiance to my yellow-bellied turncoat cousin who had folded like a cheap folding thing, I would not sell him down the river.

  In hindsight I knew I had done wrong and should have confessed. What still narks me, if I am honest after all these years, is the fact that I never got any respect for my albeit misplaced sense of honour. Sanjay and I never spoke of the incident again but I know from that day on our invisible links of brotherliness were cut for ever. Things between us would never be the same again. Ever.

  Sanjay and Victoria sponge feel very distant right now. I have to face up to the challenge of Bangalore. I had a very clear and canny plan in London. I decided that I should cook at a call centre in the call centre capital of the world. The reasons seemed to be overwhelming. Where better to try and explore the coming together of Britain and India than in the very place where India speaks to Britain, in impeccable English, while helping broadband customers reroute their router; or aiding customers to cancel their direct debit to their local gym; or do anything that needs a well-trained and able voice on the other end of the phone, on the other side of the world? Lest we forget that Bangalore has had such a proud and pronounced colonial history within British India, a British India that’s been so very crucial to my family and my very existence. To add a further layer of interest, Bangalore has changed so much since I was last here, and so rapidly that I am almost a complete stranger in a city I thought I knew. Welcome to the future of India, the future of the world.

  My canny plan to cook in a call centre manages, however, to fall on deaf ears. The multinationals that have arrived in India are exactly that: multinationals. They are not actually very Indian. They are, however, very multinational. They have all the protocols and policies of any multinational. They just happen to be populated by Indians and run locally by Indians. Generally speaking in India, if you need to get something, anything done, you just need some influence, as it is euphemistically known. Some call it corruption. I prefer the word influence. Someone, somewhere knows someone else, somewhere else who can get things done. That is the grease that oils the cogs of India. Bharat is one of those ‘someones’. He knows everyone who needs to be known. At least he used to. Globalisation seems to have changed the rules; it’s not enough to know someone. There are marketing managers and public relations executives in offices in San Francisco and Geneva. Bharat doesn’t know them and they certainly have no idea what a man of influence he is. India, it would seem, is changing. Corruption has been corrupted.

  What I am trying to say is that I am unable to convince any of the call centres to let me in to cook. They simply don’t get what I am trying to do. Frankly it would have been easier for me to go into a call centre in Hartlepool and rustle up a lamb curry. I therefore have to refocus my endeavours. Refocusing my endeavours is not an easy exercise. I had rather blithely reckoned on Bharat gaining me access to a call centre. I am at a loss to come up with a substitute scenario that has the collision of the east with the west combined with telephony. I try to make contact with a couple of the firms of international management consultants that have recently relocated to Bangalore from Wisconsin. They suggest that I write to the Corporate Interface Services Team in Wisconsin to seek pre-clearance before the Indian Corporate Interface Services Team would consider my application. That seems like a long, drawn-out process requiring time that I do not have. Perhaps I have to embrace failure. But it seems so early in my journey to be considering placing my tail between my legs. There has to be an angle that I’m missing. And then it strikes me, with the excitement of that moment when a call centre has had your call on hold for thirty-seven minutes and you are finally connected to a human being. If I can’t explore modern global India, then perhaps I should explore ancient colonial India. Genius.

  There is a famous old place in Bangalore called the Bangalore Club. Let not the simplicity of the name fool you. This is colonial elegance at its very finest. It is said that this club is the finest example of how the Raj lived and endured India. It is luxury personified. A massive main building with high-vaulted ceilings. Huge windows and open doorways facilitate a cooling breeze through the many rooms, nooks and crannies. The perfectly manicured lawns, the dazzlingly white picket fences. The two-mile journey from Bharat’s apartment to the club seems more like a sixty-year journey into the past. Were it not for the distinct lack of white faces, it might as well be the days of the Raj. The old white colonialists have been replaced by the new brown colonialists of Bangalore’s upwardly mobile middle and upper classes. I am checking in for a couple of days; seems foolish not to.

  It feels like the sweetest of ironies to reintroduce a bit of Britain into the club. Nothing could be more reminiscent of the Raj than BC, as it has affectionately become known. And walking in the grounds I feel transported back to the nineteenth century, fully expecting some Major Sahib wallah to march over to me with pith helmet and cane to start a sentence of rebuke with the words: ‘Look here … ’

  There are two dining spaces in the club. The curtly named ‘Dining Room’ is indeed a magnificent room within which to dine. Near the entrance gate (as if to separate it off for not being in keeping with the ethos of BC), and no doubt a sop to the younger, post-Independent generation of Indians, is a room altogether funkier, groovier, more contemporary. Tiger Bay feels very much out of kilter with the manicured lawns and dress code sensibility of the main building. While the main space boasts the anachronistically titled ‘Men’s Bar’, Tiger Bay has a massive plasma screen for showing sporting events (BC was, after all, founded on sport.) There is a banging sound system, a seductively dark bar and a chocolatier no more than a stone’s throw from a man who would refuse you entrance and indeed rescind you membership should you deign to appear in Indian garb: no collar, no admittance; closed shoes only, no sandals. Rules that exist from when white men ruled. Ironic that the Indians of today have kept the rules laid down by their colonial masters. How modern is modern India?

  In the main vestibule of the club is a glass-topped display cabinet within which sits an open ledger. The displayed page reads as follows:

  Minutes of the proceedings of the subcommittee held on

  Thursday 1st June 1899 at 7 p.m.

  Present:

  Colonel J.I. McGann

  Lt. Colonel Baulders

  Major Mackenzie Kennan

  Major Clark Kennedy

  The Bangalore United Service Club, Members Dues Sub Committee approve the following irrecoverable sum to be written off:

  Lt. W.L.S. Churchill……………………………… rupees 13.11

  It would appear that the late Sir Winston Churchill still owes the Bangalore Club some money.

  ‘Tod in the hole?’ Bharat is shouting down the phone at me.

  ‘No,’ I say calmly. ‘Toad. In the hole.’

  ‘Toad? You guys don’t eat frogs. That’s the French. Disgusting, man … ’

  ‘No, Bharat. It’s just a name. It’s sausages and batter.’

  There is a crackly pause.

  ‘Frogs’ legs sound nicer than sausage and batter, man.’ And he means it.

  ‘Trust me,’ I plead. ‘Come at seven o’clock. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ he replies in his default tone, namely surly.

  ‘Are you bringing anyone. How many should I cook for?’ It seems like a relevant question.

  ‘Sausage and batter, man. Who can I bring?’ And with that he is gone.

  True to his word, Bharat shows up on his lonesome. Together we enter the kitchen at the Tiger Bay. I am more than a little nervous and feeling considerably guilty about being in one of the Bangalore Club’s kitchens at what must be peak cooking time; in the UK I would ne
ver venture into a commercial kitchen between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. But this is India and people eat late. Very late.

  As I walk in I am greeted by half a dozen apathetic-looking chefs, each skinnier than the last and all bedecked in the finest chef’s whites and matching tall hats. It’s as though someone has ordered ‘cliché chefs’ from an agency that provides stereotypical chefs.

  There’s only one thing worse than a hectic restaurant kitchen and that is a quiet restaurant kitchen. The perceived upside of a quiet kitchen – the fact that there is no pressure and no frantic chefs working around me – pales into insignificance when compared to the hefty downside, namely that there is lots of pressure from the dozen eyes belonging to the non-frantic chefs who have nothing better to do than stand around and watch me.

  ‘Hello,’ I mumble, almost inaudibly.

  I make up for my half-hearted hello with a semi shouted, ‘Namasté,’ which causes one of the chefs to start.

  I was really hoping that the kitchen would be busy and that I would be allowed to find a quiet corner to cook my toad in the hole, before disappearing to my room and drinking myself into a stupor with a bottle of some single malt or other. That is clearly not going to happen.

  Bharat introduces me to the head chef. ‘This is my cousin’s husband. He’s from England.’

  ‘Scotland,’ I feel compelled to correct him.

  ‘Whatever. He is going to cook some food here. Help him. OK?’ Bharat gives one of his intense brown-eyed stares.

  His intense brown-eyed stares are replicated by the six chefs as they watched me mix flour, eggs and salt. Quite how entertaining is the preparation of a Yorkshire pudding batter is a moot point, but watch they do, seemingly transfixed. (Although I have since realised that the difference between an Indian look of transfixion registers very closely to the look of mind-numbing boredom.) I feel compelled to show my limited knife skills to their most well attuned, whilst being fully aware of the potential credibility-losing embarrassment of a ‘blood’ incident.

  Sausages are not impossible to get hold of in Bangalore, but neither are they very easy to find. There are a handful of specialist delicatessens in the city and they do stock limited numbers of items like sausages, bacon and artichoke hearts. But these shops are not easy to track down.

  ‘I have heard of a shop that sells all this kind of stuff, man. Sausages and all that fancy stuff.’

  I knew Bharat would know.

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Don’t know. I have heard of it. Never been there. Anjani will know.’

  At this point Bharat called Anjani and Anjani too had heard of such a shop but didn’t know where it was.

  ‘Geetie will know,’ said Anjani.

  And in a couple of minutes Geetie was on the other end of a mobile phone. She too had heard of such a place but she didn’t know where it was, either. I am not sure how many people were implicated in this sausage-finding project but I decided that it would be far easier to forgo the sausage and work out an acceptable substitute.

  That is why I have decided to use some strips of mutton. Ordinarily I would specify the exact cut of meat and wax lyrical about their provenance, perhaps even throwing in the name of the farmer and the type of anorak he enjoys wearing. I’m afraid I can offer no such details about these rather wan pieces of defrosted meat that lay hopelessly in front of me. I know meat is by its very nature lifeless, but these rather apologetic-looking cuts of sheep appear to have never enjoyed anything much of life; not so much as a gentle carefree gambol. But such sentimentality has no place in this kitchen. I feel the on-looking eyes and am compelled to look like I know what I am doing.

  Bharat pops back into the kitchen accompanied by a handsome young man who looks dressed for a night’s clubbing. This it transpires is the owner of the restaurant, Tommy. I’m guessing he has an Indian name like Chetan or Rohit or Rahul. But he calls himself Tommy.

  ‘Hey, Tommy, this is my cousin’s husband from England … ’

  ‘Scotland,’ I correct Bharat without even looking up from my semi-frozen meat.

  ‘Listen, man,’ Bharat says to me, ‘no one knows where Scotland is.’

  ‘Hello, Tommy. I’m Hardeep from England.’

  We shake hands.

  ‘Are you staying for dinner?’ I ask, I thought politely.

  Tommy looks shifty. He looks at Bharat. He looks back at me. ‘I have to go to my aunt’s house for dinner. Save me a little … ’

  With that he is gone.

  ‘Tommy doesn’t like English food …’ Bharat says, tactfully.

  There will be no English food if I don’t get on. Bharat slopes off no doubt in search of some single malt. I’m on my own; surrounded by chefs. I require flour for the batter mix. There are of course four types of flour on the shelf and I don’t know the Hindi word for ‘plain’. I have to guess. I beat the eggs and the salt and add the sifted flour. Gradually I drip in a mixture of milk and water to bring the eggs and flour together.

  It’s very strange being back in a commercial kitchen, my first foray since Arzooman and Kovalam. I suppose what is most daunting is the expectation level of those around me. Cooking at home allows for homely food, but this is a professional kitchen, filled with – unoccupied – professional chefs who have taken to exchanging whispered words, which are followed by knowing nods. I am absolutely sure that I am doing something very, very wrong. Could it be that I have chosen self-raising flour rather than plain? And if I have, why aren’t they telling me?

  I return my attention to my batter. Yorkshire pudding batter never looks like it’s going to be any good; that’s the joy of the process. This beige sludge becomes a delicious crispy yet soft meal.

  Under normal circumstances I would have placed a baking tray in the oven smeared in lard or dripping or duck fat. I would set the oven to its highest and allow the fat to smoke. I would then toss in my browned sausages and decant my batter mix, replacing the entire ensemble back into the oven for a little over half an hour. But this is India; there is no concept of animal fat in cooking. I am forced to choose between ghee, clarified butter and a dodgy-looking olive oil. None are anywhere near ideal. I decide to blend them and cross my fingers. I heat the oil and ghee mixture on the hob and fry off my mutton steaks. Maybe they are neck fillets, given how they seem to be browning. I pour over the batter mix and place it all in a hot oven.

  Have you ever, while cooking, waited to see if the flour you have chosen is the right type? Neither have I. Thirty-five minutes should fly by when surrounded by the cacophony and bustle of a working restaurant kitchen. But it is possibly the slowest thirty-five minutes of my cooking life. I imagine my Yorkshires cooking into hard little bullets of batter, ruined by gram flour. I have similar nightmares about monster puddings that spill out of their casings and slowly fill the entire oven with their burgeoning weight. I try to ascertain from one of the sous chefs whether the flour I chose had indeed been plain. I hold the flour dispenser in my hand as I question him.

  ‘Is this plain flour?’

  ‘Yes, sir. This is flour,’ he replies, rather meekly.

  ‘Yes but,’ I continue, ‘is it plain fl our?’

  ‘It is flour, sir. It is flour.’ He looks at me as if I require hospitalisation.

  ‘What is the Hindi for plain flour?’ I ask rhetorically.

  ‘It is flour, sir. Flour.’ He is beginning to irritate me.

  I watch and wait. I wait and watch. (What I should have done is simply open the oven and had a look. I have no idea why that most basic of thoughts never occurred to me.) I would find out in the next twenty minutes whether my choice of fl our has been correct. In the meanwhile I have other food to prepare.

  Many argue that toad in the hole’s essential ingredient is the gravy. I would not agree but would happily concede that it is a far poorer dish dry than when swimming in the dark, meaty juices of a strong gravy. But again, this is India. I can perhaps cobble together a red onion and red wine sauce, but it wou
ld have none of the deep flavour of a jus or a gravy. And it is at this point I have a slight crisis in trying to work out how a jus differs from a gravy, and which I should attempt to make. I pull myself together and decide that I am to make the world’s first ever gravy jus. I chop some onions.

  I fry off half moons of red onion. I am astonished that a restaurant as good as this seems to be has no fresh herbs to speak of. I search high and low and ask the man who appears to be the head chef. He nods sagely, before leading me to a small cupboard where he shows me a bunch of dried mint, a small amount of thyme and a teaspoonful of dried oregano. None of them look particularly fresh. That is the extent of their herb offering. I forgo the herb component to the gravy jus. I add a good glass of the house red which is unremarkable in the extreme. I let this all bubble and reduce and then thicken the whole thing in the French style with a mixture of butter and plain flour (hopefully it is plain flour). I don’t think the chefs have ever witnessed anything like this and confusion chases fear across their faces. The gravy is ready and will sit bubbling away for another ten minutes.

  I should have chosen someone less forthright and honest than Bharat Shetty to come and eat with me, but I had limited options. Given the uncertainty of the type of flour used in my batter I could be inviting a great deal more abuse upon myself than I would have readily expected. Bharat’s head pops round the door.

  ‘Hey, man. What’s happening? I’m starving.’

  ‘Hey. Nearly done. Just taking the toad out of the oven.’

  I am nervous. I was hoping that I could secretly remove the toad and if it had been a complete disaster I could have manufactured an ‘accident’, letting the dish tumble towards the hard floor, shattering into a million pieces. No one would ever have known about the flour error. But now Bharat is standing there, watching, waiting, hoping.

  ‘I’m hungry, man. Let’s do it.’