Chocolate grandfathers shooting up

Lacy Dosas

He always had a twinkle in his eye. And irrespective of when we saw him, whether he was expecting us or not, he always had candy for us in his pocket. One of the pockets of the black formal jacket he always wore – the kind lawyers wear in India, black, made of fabric that looked both uncomfortable and unforgiving. My mum’s maternal uncle. And to us, and all the kids in the family, he was Chocolate Tata (Tata being grandfather in South India). Except it was never chocolate he had for us. It was always one of two things: Poppins, which are rainbow-colored little hard round candies with a dip in the middle.

Or little green Parry’s sweets – sort of butterscotchy in flavor, hard candy. I am astounded that I remember the name Parry’s.  

It has been 4 decades since I have eaten either, and I can still taste them.

So then why Chocolate Tata? Because chocolate, for many Indians, is a generic word for candy of any sort. It was when I was a kid, and it is, for many Indians, even today. Just like the word hotel, to many Indians, means restaurant.

Now there are numerous references to English words that have become uniquely Indian – in fact, I’d argue that studies on Indian English started with lexical items. A paper (or actually, several) I read years ago, for example, when I first started getting interested in studying World Englishes, frequently described how we use the word “bore” to mean “pierce” – so I got my daughter’s ears bored. And very broadly (and simplistically, if you’ll forgive me) speaking, I could classify Indian English words into two groups – one where English words have adopted new meanings, as with “bore.” And the second, which includes words that Indians have coined to suit specific, often cultural, (but not necessarily so) purpose. So when you ask many Indians, particularly those with some expertise in language, to give you an example of a word exclusively used in India, the first one they are likely to give you is the word “prepone” – meaning “to bring forward.” The word was coined, I believe, because of a perceived lack in English (although the very first recorded use of the word, according to the OED, was in the 16th century, long before English in India became Indian; however, even the OED attributes it to India).  I remember my dad going ballistic over the frequent use of this word in India. But I mean, it works! If we can postpone, why the heck can’t we prepone?

And (most of) these lexical changes have come about because in India, as I have illustrated in previous posts, English is very much a local language, a nativized medium, through which one is able to articulate a local identity.

And while scholarship on Indian English has come very far from these early word-based, largely anecdotal accounts, there are, even today, as many lists of Indianisms as there are lists of English words of Indian origin. And for me, it is fun to go down memory lane and recall some of the words we used as kids, English words, specific connotations for which I first encountered in school and college. And then later, words I discovered were coined in India, words like prepone, that fill a gap.  So that’s where I will head with this post.

So let’s start with some fun words. What does “to mug” mean to you? Yeah, that’s not what it meant for us when we were in school. Nothing to do with being assaulted physically. Mugging takes me right back to boarding school, and what I associate it with most of all is asking to be woken up at the unearthly hour of 2 or 3am or so to do some last-minute cramming for exams – mugging means cramming. We all did it. Some for actual mugging, and for others (me among them), to obtain the resultant bragging rights – I mugged from 3am to 5am. Or I mugged all night.  Sometimes used as a prepositional verb – to mug up.

The entrance to the boarding house part of the Bishop Cotton Girls’ School.

The bottom half of this building was my dormitory when I was in 9th grade - where a lot of mugging happened.

Another school-related word is another prepositional verb – to “pass out.” Has absolutely nothing to do with fainting. In India, even today, it means to graduate – I passed out of college in 1993. And related to passing out is the word “batchmate” – someone who belonged in my cohort, and, therefore, who passed out with me.

The main quad in the Bishop Cotton Girls’ School, from which I passed out in 1988. Much has changed, but fortunately for the school (and Bangalore), that tree still stands.

My classroom when I was in 8th grade

Yet another, for me, school-related word, and again, one I associate with my years in boarding school is the verb “to sneak” – used in India specifically for someone who is a tattletale, someone who tells on someone else. We used the word as both a noun, (Don’t be a sneak (or at times, don’t be a sneaker)) and a verb (don’t sneak on me). I don’t know that I ever heard it used outside school.

Another fun one, not related to school for me, is “shooting up.” Particularly relevant to me right now, because my kids are shooting up, seemingly in front of my eyes. No, don’t panic. This means they are growing fast, getting taller – literally, shooting up. Those of you who lived in India in the 80s and maybe 90s, I hope you have the song from the Complan ad going through your heads… “He’s a growing boy, look how he’s shooting up….”

(I loved Complan – a food supplement drink we’d put it in our milk. Chocolate-flavored was my favorite. Certainly didn’t help me shoot up, though. I stand proud at 5 foot nothing; my grandma’s genes, remember?)

With regard to words coined by Indians to fill a gap, what I think of immediately is kinship terms. All the Indian languages I am familiar with have numerous kinship terms that are completely absent in English. And it is probable that an intricate system of kinship terms evolved to accommodate families living together, in what in India, is called a joint-family system; a collectivist system. So there are terms that describe exactly how an aunt is an aunt – father’s older sister/younger sister, mother’s older sister/younger sister. And the system extends further to describe relationships once an individual marries; the spouse’s entire family now becomes extended family, which, of course, provides fodder for more vocabulary. So an aunt who becomes an aunt by virtue of the fact that she married an uncle has a specific term.  And another interesting word describes the relationship between two sets of parents whose children are married – so my husband’s parents and my parents are sambandhi in Tamil. No word in English for this. Yet.

Now Indian English has by no means evolved enough to include the complexity of kinship terms in the Indian languages, but today does include some new lexical items. Cousins in India, for example, are not just cousins; they’re cousin-brothers or cousin-sisters.  And once we marry, if our spouse has siblings, the siblings’ spouses are also related to us now… being our co-sister or co-brother. As with prepone, definitely useful words.

And there are so many more. Some fun and interesting, and others, well, less happy words, which will be the subject of a future post. An area where English words haven’t, to my knowledge, been localized, however, is the culinary world. Here, Indian languages have supplied the world with many new lexical items, but I can’t think of an English word that has been localized to describe an Indian food. Yay. So for example, the word pancake hasn’t been Indianized to describe a dosa (or a dosai, depending on where in India you are from). So while a dosa can be an Indian pancake abroad, or a chapatti can be an Indian flat-bread abroad, in India, they are dosas and chapattis. And dosas and chapattis they’ll stay. I hope.

So on that note, let’s turn to this week’s recipe – the semolina dosa I promised you last week. In my household, we call these lacy dosas – and if you make them right, you’ll see why. This is an easy dosa to make, the batter doesn’t need to ferment. They are absolutely delicious. And if you don’t have any onion gojju from last week, and don’t feel like making any right now, sprinkle a little sugar or honey on one of these gorgeous lacy dosas. They are amazing.

Rava Dosa (aka Lacy Dosa in the Balasubramanian-Hopkins household)

Ingredients (makes about 10 dosas)

½ cup fine semolina

½ cup rice flour

¼ cup all-purpose flour

2 sprigs of curry leaves torn up into small pieces

2 green chillies (or to taste) finely chopped

½ tsp salt

3½ cups water

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp mustard seeds

1 Tbsp cumin seeds

1 tsp finely chopped ginger (optional)

Method

1.     Mix the semolina, rice flour, all-purpose flour and salt together well.  Mix with 3 cups of water. Whisk together till you get a smooth batter. Allow the batter to sit for about 10 minutes and then add the remaining ½ cup of water. The batter should be runny.

2.     Heat the oil in a small pan. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. When they start popping, turn the heat down to low.

3.     When the mustard is almost done popping, add the cumin, chillies, ginger (if you are using it), and curry leaves. Allow everything to splutter together for about 5 seconds and then add this, the tempering mixture, to the runny batter. Stir in to the batter. When making the dosas, it is important to stir the batter well before each dosa since the semolina and rice flour sink to the bottom.

4.     Heat a non-stick skillet. Test it for how hot it is by splashing a few drops of water on it. If the water splutters madly, the skillet is hot enough. Turn the heat down to medium and pour a good ladleful of batter (after stirring it well) onto the skillet. Move the ladle around as you pour so all the batter doesn’t end up in one place on the skillet. The batter should spread and get its characteristic holes in it. I absolutely love the different shapes the dosas take on, and so do my kids, so I never try to get the dosas round.

5.     Since the batter has oil in it, you won’t need more oil for the dosa. However, if you feel like the dosa is sticking, add a couple of drops of oil to where it is sticking.

6.     Allow the dosa to cook for about a minute and a half on one side on medium heat. You’ll see the sides starting to brown. Now flip it over. Cook for another minute. If it doesn’t come off the pan easily to flip, it needs a wee bit more cooking.

7.     Now take it off the pan, and eat it hot!

To those who celebrate, Merry Christmas! And to everyone, Happy Holidays!