Sex Appeal. And Innocence.

Chayote curry with Sambaar powder

Your interest piqued?

The first time I heard the phrase sex appeal, I was 13. My first year at boarding school. I distinctly remember a few of my dorm-mates and I standing around our cupboards, changing into our nightclothes before we were barked at by the head girl of the dorm. One of my friends suddenly commenting…Wow, Chandri has sex appeal. A mixture of incredulity, astonishment, admiration in her voice. Perhaps some envy? Mostly incredulity. The reason for the incredulity was obvious. I was at my skinniest. Nothing had developed. Remember the picture of me and my granddad? Yeah…probably taken the same year. So thinking about it now, sex appeal was not a phrase I would even remotely associate with myself at that age.

But then? I really didn’t know what it meant. I knew it had to be something positive, given her wow and the conversation that ensued.

So how did she decide I possessed this much sought-after thing? I apparently had two, not one, features that were considered sexy. And how did she glean such wisdom?  Whatever was read in those days, the 80s version of Cosmo in India, that declared that such and such were essentials of beauty and sex appeal. And for my dormitory mates, the sources of such wisdom were probably either Femina or Filmfare, one (or both) of which must have reported that two features indicative of sex appeal were a dimple in the small of one’s back, and a widow’s peak. A widow’s peak?? This, I was told, is a v-shaped hairline in front, in the center of one’s forehead. I had a slight widow’s peak, and the requisite dimple on the small of my back.

So apparently, I had sex appeal.

Now despite being delivered this cause for supposed euphoria and the resultant bragging rights in my 13th year, when I think back to whether or how it affected me, all I can think is that it didn’t. I really don’t think I understood it enough to brag. And even since then, the only time I have really looked at Filmfare and Femina (and I have never opened a Cosmo, let alone read one) was when I was compiling the written part of a corpus of Indian English for my Ph.D. dissertation. My appearance during those years was neither a source of angst nor joy; in fact, I really don’t remember thinking much about my appearance. I mean, sure, I wanted to wear what other people were wearing. I swore to my parents one year (might even have been that same year) that everyone was wearing leg warmers (thanks, Madonna), and I wanted a set. I wanted tights and leg warmers. . And I wanted that black pencil skirt, remember? But while I wanted to conform through clothing, I was never the slightest bit aware of the fact that they wouldn’t look great on me. No bum and incredibly skinny legs. I was oblivious.  And this, I think, made for an altogether happier teenage-hood than it otherwise would have been.

And when I think of the source of my oblivion, I think it might have been because I spent my formative years in Yemen, sheltered. Yes, very sheltered. Innocent, which in English, has very positive connotations. In Tamil, there is the word pavam, which has more negative connotations. Naïve, not worldly, bookish, nerdy. I was all these.  But this, I think, allowed me to develop a core me, one that wasn’t as shaken by the vagaries of teenage rebellion and fashion as much as it otherwise would. (The fact that the core was terribly shaken during my first few years in the US – well, that’s the subject of another post. Or several.)

I have thought of that time a lot recently, because my elder little is about to turn 10. And he has spent all but the first nine months of his life so far in Oman, in an atmosphere not terribly dissimilar, in certain fundamental ways, to that I spent my youth in in Aden. When we moved here, we made a deliberate choice to live away from the more western part of town, a decision made in order to give ourselves and our offspring a different way of life, an attempt to experience more of the local culture. A more sheltered life. And even then, we knew we wanted this temporarily, that sooner rather than later, we’d seek other opportunities for many reasons, not the least of which is that we would like the kids to experience life in a less conservative society, a society that is less gender-segregated.

But in thinking about change, it is impossible for me not to reflect on what our sheltered lives have afforded us in the past several years.

We live on a university campus. We live among community that, despite their driving habits, cares deeply about children. Our kids are sheltered in very basic ways. The kids they don’t have much of a chance at all to go anywhere by themselves, for example. For now, even on campus. And now that they are getting old enough to wander off by themselves on campus, they still won’t be able to wander off campus – simply because of a lack of public transport. And driving, thankfully, is still a few years away. It was the same for me in Aden; no street smarts whatsoever. And I didn’t learn to drive till I was 30.

This hasn’t been without its disadvantages. During our time in Frankfurt this summer, we realized what we had always, to an extent, known: how our sheltered way of life has prevented our kids from developing a certain independence, basic street smarts. For example, when my son wanted to exert his independence (he wanted to walk down to the neighborhood ice cream shop by himself), we realized that we weren’t comfortable with his ability to cross busy streets by himself yet.

But in other ways, my children’s lives are as different as they can be from my childhood; the social issues that bombard today’s children are substantial, for lack of a better word. It seems impossible to stray far enough from the “ignoble strife” of today’s “madding crowd”. Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard continues to reveal new meaning for me.  And a lack of street smarts, seems a small thing to bemoan when I think of the other things growing up in a conservative society has afforded the kids. And for this, I am grateful.

For now, they know absolutely nothing about sex appeal. Or society’s ideals of physical beauty. Or, of course, how these ideas are dictated by certain societies.

For now, they know absolutely nothing about issues that would confront them on a daily basis were we to have continued to live in the US. Active shooter drills at school, for instance. I am beyond grateful that this is not a part of their realities.

And for now, and this is something I have struggled greatly with, they know little about racism. Or discrimination of any kind. Or alcoholism. Or addiction of any other kind. Or issues confronting anyone societies in the Center deem the Other. Do these social ills exist here? Heck yes. But covertly. And my children have been sheltered from them. No, to be honest, let me use the active voice: we have sheltered our children from them.

And I have struggled because there is a part of me that thinks I am being irresponsible because I am sheltering them too much by not teaching them about racism. About inequity. About discrimination. I mean, these would be a big part of their reality were we to have raised them in the US, right? Or really, most anywhere else. Absolutely. And they would have known, from a much younger age than they are now, where we stand on various issues. They do know where we stand, but not about the issues themselves. Because we certainly don’t avoid discussions on thorny issues at home; they simply happen naturally when they arise. We talk matter-of-factly about people of all different kinds, the importance of accepting and appreciating difference, not hiding anything, but not focusing on anything either.  Because we choose not to. Because we don’t have to because they simply aren’t as visible. Yet.

And I know we have been judged for the way we are choosing to raise our kids at the moment.

But is it selfish for me to want them to retain their innocence for just a little bit longer? To stay children, to remain oblivious to the hierarchy of privilege (or lack, thereof) afforded by the color of one’s skin? To try and negotiate where on this hierarchy they fit? Are they more white or more brown? Why does this make a difference? How does this make a difference? Is it selfish of me to want to give them just a wee bit of time before they have to face the myriad ways in which one human being can be inhuman?

But despite the struggle, I make peace with wanting to preserve this innocence in the hopes that they are developing their own strong cores that will, I hope, help them withstand the uncertainties of teenage-hood. And life in today’s world.

Onto food, then.

Now I wasn’t entirely spared of teen angst.  And the older I get, the more I realize that there is a great deal I have yet to unpack.  While there is a lot I don’t remember, or a lot I choose not to remember, what I do remember is how often I turned to cooking…it seems to have been my way to quieten my head, to move away from whatever “madding crowd” I was troubled by. I have written in the past of the feeling of pure joy, calm, excitement, there really isn’t a word that fits how I used to feel when I was about to start preparing the evening meal for the entire family.

One of the vegetables I loved then, and still do, is chayote. This name, I learned only on moving to the US. Till then, it was seemakatrikai to me, its Tamil name. Chayote, or Mirliton squash, is a vegetable belonging to the gourd family, and I also learned, on moving to the US, that it is popular in Mexican cuisine. Which is why I had easy access to it in the US.

This is a lovely vegetable, great texture when lightly cooked, a bit like a jicama. Slightly crunchy is the way I like it, but that is a taste I’ve developed later in life; when I was young, we would cook it till it was soft. It very easily absorbs the flavor of whatever it is cooked with, and can be cooked in numerous different ways. My favorite even now is to make a bajji, a chickpea-batter coated fritter, with it.

Today, I won’t give you a bajji recipe, but a simple dry curry, using the sambaar powder that I gave you the recipe for a few weeks ago. Just want to show you how versatile the sambaar powder is. So if you haven’t yet made any, do!

And if you haven’t made any sambaar powder yet, just use a couple of dry red chillies and a tablespoon of urad dhal in place of the sambaar powder in this recipe. It won’t taste the same, but will make a simple and incredibly tasty curry. And if you’re not yet comfortable making these substitutions without exact steps, let me know in the comments?

But for today, here’s Chayote curry with sambaar powder. Now the variety of chayote available in India (and in Oman) is a bit thick-skinned and quite fibrous. The skin is not very pleasant to eat, so I peel the vegetable. The variety I used to buy in the US was much thinner-skinned, so there was no peeling needed. Whether you peel it or not, to cut it, first cut it down the middle, length-wise. There is a small and tender seed in the middle, just take that out. You should be able to easily remove the seed with a butter knife.

Chayote Curry with Sambaar Powder

Ingredients (serves 2-3 as a side)

1.     About 1lb (400-450g) of chayote, peeled, if necessary, and cut up into fairly thin pieces (see accompanying picture)

2.     ½ Tbsp mustard seeds

3.     2 Tbsp oil (trust me, this is enough)

4.     2-3 sprigs fresh curry leaves (if you don’t have any, do still make this curry!)

5.     1 ½ Tbsp Sambaar powder

6.     ½ tsp turmeric

7.     ¼ tsp asafoetida

8.     1 tsp salt

Method

1.     Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet. When it is hot, add mustard seeds and allow them to pop, turning the heat down once they start popping.

2.     When they are about done popping, put in the curry leaves, turmeric, and asafoetida. Stand back while the curry leaves splutter.

3.     Now put in the cut chayote and salt. Stir, and allow the chayote to cook on medium for about 7 minutes (if your pieces are as thin as mine were), with a lid on. Stir occasionally.

4.     Check for doneness. It should be fork tender, but have a wee bit of a bite. If you like it more done, cook it for an additional couple of minutes.

5.     When it is done to your liking, stir in the sambaar powder, stir, turn off the heat, and serve with hot rice and dhal.