Monsoon Diary (24 page)

Dinner was the only meal for which the whole family attempted to come together. Bushels of corn were husked and boiled. My mother-in-law was loath to throw away the husks but couldn’t find any practical use for them. She was delighted when my brother-in-law announced that he would use the husks for his garden. Someone chopped vine-ripened tomatoes for a fresh salad. Someone else made a gargantuan pot of rice. Anu stirred up some dal.

The teenagers pumped up the music, and we all tumbled out onto the patio to eat and drink. My brother-in-law, who collected wines and antiques, uncorked a rare vintage every evening. People old and young jumped into the hot tub, listened to Hindi film songs that alternated with teenage rock bands with unpronounceable names, and periodically emerged to gorge on the buffet laid out on long tables by the pool. The sun dipped into the river.

Ram and I carried our dinner out to the hammock. Since I loved Greek salad, Anu usually left some olives and feta cheese on the side. The corn was sweet and crisp, the tomatoes redder and juicier than any tomato had the right to be. The red onions were pungent; the olives and feta that I added gave my salad just the right tang. Anu’s dal was delicately spiced with cilantro. A Hardy’s Shiraz rounded it out. A good wine, my brother-in-law said, not a great wine, but what did I know?

I lay toe to toe with Ram, sipping wine and sampling olives. The sky was splattered with early stars. A globular moon hung low in the horizon. Someone laughed, someone else splashed into the water. Seagulls cried farewells before flying off into the sunset. Across the river, fluorescent lights twinkled faintly from distant homes. A faint breeze rustled the tendrils behind my ear.

I leaned back into the hammock and sighed. The warm breeze caressed my salty skin. The black sky blanketed us like a cocoon. The river lapped in comforting murmurs. There were happy sounds from the pool.

I took a sip of wine and a bite of the dense bread that Anu had baked the previous day. I tickled Ram’s toes and smiled. I spooned the dal-rice into my mouth and licked my lips, perfectly content.

Ram and I would have many adventures. We would have children and go on voyages big and small. We would make mistakes, fight, and make up. We would indulge fantasies and share disappointments. We would grieve and glory together.

But for now, I had a glass of wine and Ram by my side. For now, this was enough. For now, this was bliss.

List of Recipes

Channa (Chickpea) Masala

Fruit Chaat

Ghee

Hot Bajjis

Inji Curry (Ginger-Tamarind Pickle)

My Father’s Coconut Chutney

Okra Curry

Panagam

Pav-Bhaji

Poha

Pongal

Potato Masala

Puris

Rasam

Shanti’s Olan

Soft Idlis

Thandai

Upma

Vatral Kuzhambu

Vegetable Stew

Yogurt Rice

SHOBA NARAYAN is a food and travel writer and has written for a variety of publications including
Travel & Leisure, Gourmet, Saveur, Food
& Wine, Newsweek, House Beautiful, The New York Times,
and
The
Wall Street Journal
. She comments for NPR’s
All Things Considered.
She is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the James Beard Foundation’s M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award and Columbia University’s Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. She divides her time between New York, Singapore, and India, and has recently joined the digital age by designing her own website,
www.shobanarayan.com
.

2004 Random House Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright © 2003 by Shoba Narayan

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Parts of this book were originally published in
Beliefnet, Food & Wine,
Gourmet, House Beautiful,
and
Saveur.

RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Narayan, Shoba.
Monsoon diary: a memoir with recipes / Shoba Narayan.
p. cm.
1. Cookery, Indic. I. Title.
TX724.5.I4 N269 2002
641.5954—dc21 2002027033

Random House website address:
www.atrandom.com

www.randomhouse.com

eISBN: 978-0-307-43148-6

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