Old, dusty bookstores

South Indian okra curry

Memories…down a specific lane.

Dark, dusty, shelf upon shelf, in row after row of old books. My brother and I eagerly pulling books off shelves to explore what we could dive into next. Aziz Bookshop in Aden, 1980. Where I discovered my love for reading.

The family moved to Aden in 1980, I hadn’t turned 8 yet. For the first five months of our lives there, we lived in a hotel in an area called Al Tawahi, also called the Steamer Point in English. Two young kids cooped up in a hotel room, not a lot to do. A great part of our entertainment came from walking down to the beach area every evening. Watching the waves, playing along the beach. And getting falafel and fries from the food trucks. The best damn falafel I have eaten, to this day. All came wrapped in newspaper, malt vinegar and salt on the fries. Except we called them chips, of course. My brother and I would argue over who would lick the flavor off the newspaper when the chips were gone.

And on one such evening, either after the beach or before, we discovered Aziz Bookshop. I can still see the proprietor, with big fuzzy eyebrows. I can still smell the place, dusty, a bit musty, the smell of old books. I can still feel the old books, thick paper, some so old that dog-earing the pages would cause them to break off, little triangles of paper. Which quickly taught us not to dog-ear books. Aziz Bookshop was central to my development as a child, because there, I discovered Enid Blyton.

With that discovery, there was no turning back. We bought so many books at Aziz Bookshop, and when my parents discovered what voracious readers we were, every birthday present was not a book, but an entire series. And so our childhood was full of the Famous Five, the Five Find-outers, the Secret Seven, the Magic Faraway Tree in the Enchanted Wood. And oh the boarding school books.  Through Enid Blyton I learned about camping – in caravans. How we longed to own a caravan. Camping in the countryside, farmlands (in my mind, exactly like tapestries, thanks, Indigo Girls. They came decades later.), adventures, looking for soft heather that could be used for bedding, and of course, food. The picnics all sounded incredible. And the midnight feasts – I was so disappointed that they didn’t actually happen at my boarding school in Bangalore. Boiled eggs dipped into salt, butter and jam sandwiches, cakes of various kinds, tinned pineapple, which to this day, I’ll eat only because of Enid Blyton. And ham sandwiches with pickled onions cut up in them. I didn’t actually taste ham till decades later, but still drooled. Not a good little Brahmin girl at all.

But it wasn’t all just magic and fun. Through Enid Blyton, I learned responsibility – older siblings caring for younger siblings; kindness and compassion, to people, to animals; generosity, humility, honesty; I learned the value of independence, of being strong-willed;  I learned that hard work paid off. And I learned that there was nothing wrong with being mischievous, occasionally.

 And in my Enid Blyton world, color didn’t exist. People were people. Naivety, sure, but what’s wrong with that for a child? Like for now, for my kids, color doesn’t exist. Digression: I was horrified a few years ago when my son referred to someone as a “black uncle” till I realized that he was talking about the color of the man’s shirt because he didn’t know how else to identify him (and every adult is an uncle or an auntie; this is a part of my kids’ Indianness). This is an innocence that will disappear soon, and will have to, as the children learn more about the world. But I am immensely grateful to live in an area of the world that affords me the luxury of allowing the innocence to last longer than it would elsewhere.

I have no idea why Blyton’s popularity didn’t extend across the pond, and it was with utter dismay when I learned a few years ago that even in Britain, Enid Blyton was not universally regarded as the amazing creator of magic worlds that I had known her as. That she was considered a racist, a homophobe, a sexist.  

And I reacted with anger – why are people so quick to judge? Why are we taking her work out of context? She wrote in the 1940s and 50s, for crying out loud. Of course she was sexist. According to today’s standards. She called George in the Famous Five a “tomboy”. And of course that is problematic. Today. But then? And as far as a lack of diversity goes, well Rowling’s Hogwarts isn’t exactly a multicultural haven, is it? Parvati and Padma Patil and Cho Chang – her nods to diversity. But the Patil twins aren’t exactly the most popular kids at school, are they?

But of course, it’s not as simple as that. I know.

Yes, Blyton was racist. Her bad guys were often “foreign.” Her cultural stereotypes were not exactly PC for today’s world. BUT. Cultural stereotypes still exist. Her description of a little Spanish girl (Carlotta) as “wild” and “dark”. She had dark black long hair.  And a strong personality full of passion. Would using “passionate” instead of “wild” have been better? But Blyton wrote for young kids. And how is her stereotype of Carlotta different from Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock? Oh, don’t have a cow, Blyton was no Shakespeare. But cultural stereotypes are cultural stereotypes, aren’t they? And they very much exist today; not matter how aware we may claim to be, we are still quick to judge another - through the lens of our own culture.  

So I think my biggest gripe with taking too judgmental a view of writers writing at a certain time and therefore wanting to outright dismiss their offerings today (and of course there are definitely exceptions to what I am saying) is that we have a strong propensity for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Absolutely, certain parts of the baby would be better avoided today, but perhaps the rest, the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, could be used as important teaching moments for children? Sexism in language is still rampant, and I am ALL for more inclusive language. So instead of avoiding Blyton altogether for being sexist, how about using George as an example of someone who might warrant the use of a different pronoun?

And rather than relegating her 600-odd books to history, couldn’t we use them to our advantage today? And thereby let children enjoy the goodness that she did have to offer?

I am grateful to have had a childhood filled with Enid Blyton. And thanks to my parents, who have continued the tradition of giving sets of books as birthday presents, my kids already own sets and sets of her work. And as I read the books to them or with them, I welcome the opportunities that arise that enable me to introduce to the children the harsher realities of life. In a safe context. Because that’s what Enid Blyton was to me. Safety, comfort, a breath of fresh, cool air on a hot, humid Yemeni day.

And just as Blyton was, and still is, safety and comfort, certain foods continue to be. The potateem I gave you last week was an example, as is the simple South Indian okra curry that I have today. While I have at least 10 different ways I can think of to make okra, this is the simplest, the most comforting. This is one of the things I started experimenting with in the kitchen in our apartment in Aden (once we finally were moved out of the hotel) when I was not allowed to cook unsupervised yet. I’d sneakily make some when my parents were out, both because I wanted to eat some, and also because I just wanted to cook, trying (often in vain) to make sure the kitchen didn’t still smell when they returned. Never actually got in trouble for cooking, though. Early pride on my parents’ part? Don’t know.

And this okra curry is my 9-year-old’s absolutely favorite vegetable.

And the okra for this curry today came from our garden. Bonus, because my goodness, home grown is amazing!

Okra flower in our garden

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Simple South Indian Okra Curry

Ingredients (serves 4; vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free)

1.     1 lb, or about ½ kg of okra

2.     2 ½ Tbsp vegetable oil

3.     1 tsp mustard seeds

4.     1 Tbsp urad dhal

5.     2 dried red chillies, or more or less as per your taste, broken into two or three pieces each

6.     2 squeezes (about ¼ tsp) of asafoetida

7.     ½ tsp turmeric

8.     ¾ tsp salt

Method

1.     Wash the okra and thoroughly dry it. Cut the dried okra into ½ inch pieces. I cut the head and tail of the okra right off, and would definitely recommend cutting off the head as texturally, it is unpleasant to eat, and also cooks differently from the rest of the vegetable. Keep the tail if you wish – nothing wrong with it.  I cut off the very tip out of habit.

2.     Heat the oil in a skillet. Once it is hot, add the mustard seeds, and wait for them to start popping. Once they do, turn the heat down to low.

3.     Once the mustard has almost stopped popping, add the urad dhal. Cook on low heat till the dhal is a pretty golden brown.

4.     Now add the dried chillies and asafoetida, and turmeric.

5.     Immediately add the cut okra and the salt.

6.     Cook on low-medium heat with a lid partially on. Cook for 8-10 minutes.

7.     Now take the lid off, and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.

8.     Simple and delicious. Serve hot with rice and a dhal of your choice. This would go great with the cabbage porichakoottu recipe that I gave you several weeks ago.