Sunday 10 March 2024

Bengali Ghee

Food preferences are inherently subjective – shaped by culture, what we eat in our formative years, and individual taste. Having said that, can we all agree that Bengali ghee is objectively superior.

Compared to ghee from the rest of India (let's call this "non-Bengali ghee"), Bengali ghee is cooked longer and at a higher temperature, which makes it more caramelised, grainier in texture, darker, and slightly sweeter. The two are so different that they almost shouldn't be called by the same name.

Non-Bengali ghee is basically a cooking medium. Bengali ghee can be used that way too, but it also tastes amazing in its pure form. In fact, the simpler the dish, the more it shines. Bengali ghee with steaming basmati rice and a pinch of salt is pure perfection.

When I visit Kolkata, ghee is one of the things I always bring back with me. Because for whatever reason, it's difficult if not impossible to find outside Bengal, let alone in other countries.

When my friend Bronwen came to visit us in Copenhagen, we fed her Bengali ghee with rice and begun bhaja. The ghee, as you would expect, blew her mind.

Bronwen lives in a village in Wales which has no Indian stores, so she said the next time her dad went to Cardiff, she would ask him to get some ghee for her. I warned her that this would almost certainly be non-Bengali ghee, but she said, "Oh it's fine, I probably can't even tell the difference."

A few weeks later she texted me saying, "My dad brought me some ghee, and what the fuck, this is completely different, nowhere near as nice!" I said I told you so.

Mustafa, a giant supermarket in Singapore which specialises in South Asian products, has two whole aisles of ghee, but no Bengali ghee.


In a way, it's annoying, not being able to find Bengali ghee in various countries that I have lived in. But a part of me is perversely pleased that Bengali ghee is such a hidden gem; a closely-guarded secret, accessible only to us. It's a complicated feeling – not easy to express, but I've tried my best:

Monday 19 February 2024

Night Picnic

On Chinese New Year's Eve, I had a picnic with two Chinese friends at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It was truly impromptu – my friend texted me when I was about to cook dinner, and we met at the park an hour later.

We hung out till after midnight, and it was a memorable evening for me. One of those times when everything comes together perfectly – a core memory, as my GenZ friends say. The only downside was that despite dousing ourselves with herbal bug-spray and my friend burning white sage ("It clears bad vibes, not sure about insects"), we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

CNY Eve, as you would expect, is traditionally celebrated with Chinese food. But I got Indian food as requested, and my friends brought pizza and grilled chicken. I remarked it was funny how none of us got Chinese food, to which my friend said, "At least the mosquitoes are getting authentic Chinese blood."

My friends were teaching me random Chinese phrases, among which was luchabiao or green-tea bitch – a woman who is calculating, but pretends to be innocent and pure, usually to attract men. It's obviously a sexist term and not one we would use, but for my cultural edification, they gave me various examples of luchabiao behaviour.

A short while later, I was trying to open a bottle of ice tea with a very tight lid. I tried for a bit (unsuccessfully), then passed it to my friend, asking her if she wanted to have a go.

"Now this is green-tea bitch behaviour," she said, "except the gender roles are reversed."

Friday 19 January 2024

Two Carol Quotes

The mezzanine floor of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple has statues of several eminent monks, such as Venerable Miao Hua (1922-2009) pictured below.

My friend Carol described it as "Madame Tussauds for monks".

* * *

Last year I watched Women's Football World Cup final with Carol and her dad. Before that, we also watched a few Men's World Cup games together which, here in Singapore, were very late at night.

On one such occasion – a Friday – we went to a birthday party in the evening. Carol and I left around 11pm to come back to my place, where her friend also joined us. We watched a game from midnight to 2am. I napped for a bit, while the two of them went out to eat bak kut teh at one of the all-night joints on my street. Then we watched another game from 3–5am.

I was wearing this t-shirt, which dates back to my college days when I was much more into football than I am now:

"Maybe you should cross out the Sleep," Carol said.

Thursday 18 January 2024

Fundamental Questions

Two perfectly-phrased questions (one of them rhetorical) that I came across online:

1. Last year Straits Times published this article (paywalled) with the somewhat clickbaity title: 'Wild boars likely to recolonise whole of Singapore in next decade: Study'.

The article was reposted on HardwareZone, where one forum member asked the all-important question: "means what? good or not good?"

Straight down to brass tacks; a classic Singaporean response. I often think about it when reading academic papers or attending conferences.

2. Twitter user Zuvele, on her kindergarten-age nephew: "I asked my nephew if he could count to 1000. He said 'no'. I asked if he could count to 100 - yes. 200 - yes. Why not 1000? He looked at me wearily and said, 'Who has the time?'"

Sunday 31 December 2023

Unconditional Love: part 2

When my parents visited me in London in 2012, it was their very first trip abroad. They stayed with me; I gave them my bed while I slept on the floor on an inflatable mattress.

At the time, I was renting a house with three other friends. None of us liked the house, so our plan was to find a new place and move as soon as our 6-month lease was over.

The house had four bedrooms, and we split the rent unequally based on size and other factors. I paid the least because I picked the smallest bedroom (featured before on this blog). It also had a lumpy mattress and no attached bathroom. It had nice light though, which counts for a lot.

I was working at a law firm, and could easily have afforded one of the "better" rooms. But I reasoned that since I didn't like the house anyway and planned to move as soon as possible, I may as well save some money.

I was recently going through my stuff and found a letter from my mum, which she left on the last day of their stay.

It says:

Bugai, [my nickname]

We tidied your room as far as possible. We cleaned the microwave oven too. Your phone SIM is under the white cup on your table.

When you shift, please don't choose the most inconvenient room. We want you to have a good life for yourself. It was no problem at all for us, but at the end of a long day, you should sleep in a nice room, on a nice bed. Next time we'll come for a longer holiday.

—Mum

Blog notes:

  • Here, in case you missed it, is Unconditional Love: part 1.)
  • In 2023 I wrote more posts than any year since 2015. I think 24 posts a year (two per month) is a good number to aim for. Let's see if I can keep it up.

Saturday 30 December 2023

The Mirik Cormorant

When we were in Darjeeling, my friend and I went on a day trip to the nearby hill-town of Mirik to visit another friend, Gaurav. As we walked around Mirik lake, Gaurav pointed out a solitary cormorant.

These birds typically spend the summer months in Mirik, migrating to the plains in winter. Four summers ago, it seems that this particular bird got injured. Gaurav said he can still fly, but not for long distances. Unable to join his fellows in the winter migration, he stayed on at the lake.

Local people tried to catch him, hoping to nurse him back to health. But each time someone got close, he would dive into the lake and evade capture. After a while, they gave up trying.

The cormorant has now spent four years in Mirik, catching fish (of which there are plenty) and apparently not too bothered by the winter temperatures. Once a year, his friends fly back to the lake and he hangs out with them. Then they fly off again, and the Mirik cormorant is on his own.

Perhaps he likes it this way.

Wednesday 27 December 2023

Three Species of Annoying Song

There are songs which I almost love, which makes them more frustrating than songs which I don't like at all. I have identified three such categories.

1. Songs which have a small part which I really like, but I don't like the rest of the song.

Example: Dissect the Bird by John Craigie. I love the chorus – "Oh, you're doing it wrong / Dissecting the bird, trying to find the song" – but that's about it.

2. Songs which would be perfect at 3-5 minutes, but stretch out for longer and overstay their welcome.

Example: Taylor Swift's All Too Well (10-minute version). She has recorded shorter versions of the song too, but they don't have my favourite verse ("And you were tossing me the car keys / Fuck the patriarchy key chain on the ground / We were always skipping town / And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now / He's gonna say it's love").

3. Songs where I like the writing and composition, but not so much the rendition.

Example: If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Luckily my friend recorded a really nice version accompanying herself on piano, so I can listen to that instead of the original.

A bonus fourth species – though this is more of an annoying artist (as opposed to annoying song) situation. My friend Rajasi, who is an excellent amateur singer, recorded a version of Aashiyan. Approximately once a quarter, I try to coax, cajole or emotionally blackmail her into recording more songs, but no luck so far. "It's a lot of work" is her usual excuse, or sometimes she just deflects me with "haha".

Tuesday 26 December 2023

Caterpillar Rescue on the DHR

Fourteen years ago, I travelled by train from Siliguri (120 metres above sea level) to Darjeeling (2,045 m) – a seven-hour journey on the magnificent Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Last week, I took the DHR from Darjeeling down to Siliguri. (A separate trip. Don't worry, I haven't been stuck in Darjeeling all this while.)

The train, as you can see from this photo, passes alarmingly close to houses and shops.

Much of the route is forested, and the train also passes alarmingly close to trees, frequently brushing against leaves and branches.

One such branch had five caterpillars who were scooped onto the windowpane. We were worried that they would fall onto the road and get crushed by vehicles, so when the train stopped midway as it sometimes does, we decided to try and rescue them.

My friend picked them up with a boarding pass. I got off the train and ferried the caterpillars, one by one, to the trees on the other side of the road that runs alongside the tracks.

Another rescue-related anecdote, while we're at it. One of our university colleagues in Singapore is part of a food rescue initiative. Except sometimes, the food rescue team can't distribute all the food in time, so they request me and my friend T to help finish or distribute the food before it spoils.

T and I call ourselves: Team Food Rescue Rescue ðŸ˜Ž