It was Diwali yesterday, a festival of lights, a festival to celebrate triumph of good over evil, a festival to fill your dull and boring life with joy, happiness and sparkling light. Here in Atlanta, I celebrated it with my roommate, a few friends and my family. Yes! I said, my family, before you scratch your head bald let me thank Skype.
It all started with a call from my room mate a night before Diwali. He reminded me that it was Diwali the following day and that we had to celebrate it. The plan was made instantly on phone, "you make something special", I suggested, "I will prepare Aloo Tikki and Atta ka Halwa", I added. We agreed, in the morning the first thing was to find out what all things were available and what were missing for that Gourmet's Delight. Surprisingly, we had only a few things missing. I needed some Coriander/Cilantro for Aloo Tikki and some dry fruits for Halwa and he wanted Aloo and Kaala Jeera for Aloo Dum that he wanted to cook. That is not bad when you need Curd, Tamarind chutney, Mint Chutney, Onions, Jeera/Cumin seeds and hell lot of other things for just Aloo Tikkis. We also cajoled a friend to "share" this with us and make some puris as his part of work. Later, we had to drop puris from the menu as we only had enough atta for halwa.
With all set, I pressure cooked 6 medium sized potatoes, made Tikki Masala out of it and started making Aloo Tikki while Navneet (my roomie) was gone to Farmer's market to get those small Aloos for Aloo dum. By the time he came back Aloo Tikkis were ready so we had 2-3 Aloo Tikkis each, there were still 4 of them left uncooked, to be eaten in the morning.
Then I started making halwa, the whole process was complicated but, other then messing up with hot water, rest all went good. Guys, if you want to make halwa prepare some hot water in advance, trust me you do not want to add cold water to your halwa. It looked awesome until I added water to it, but, after that it became sticky and did not taste good at the end. However, they did not complain about it and we kind of ate 15% of all that I made.
Navneet has a skilled hand when it comes to making Dal-Makhaani, luckily he had some from day before Diwali and he made some Aloo Dum today. So dineer was all good, we had dinner together and it was again fun more than this post for sure.
Everything was ok outside the kitchen, but when we had our dinner and went back we did not see our kitchen there, it was a big mess. All four burners of the stove were blatantly displaying the menu of the day to everyone. The sink was a humble witness of atrocity and was crying out loud if those yellow stains can be counted as tears. The utensils were fighting with each other to find their rightful place in the basin. We had no idea how many utensils we used, we were running out of spoons, bowls, forks and everything else that you usually have in a kitchen which is barely a kitchen.
I had to take responsibility of this herculean task, I got up in the morning took out the vacuum cleaner and cleaned the burners, I know it sounds weird but it works when you have lumps lurking around. It took almost 15 minutes but burners were squeaky clean. Next was the sink and then was the time to eat some of the leftover halwa with those 4 aloo tikkis. How could I miss family? How could I miss friends? How could I miss anyone when I did so much here? I do not know how, but I did miss everything. For few moments I wanted to be home. I wanted to help my nephew and niece with firecrackers. I wanted to be their hero chacha once more. I wanted to go out with friends. I wanted to have some pictures with my mom to put on my orkut page. I wanted to be happy not just look happy. All in All, I wanted to have part of what you had there friend. Someday I will, being an optimistic I always think that. Someday I will.
