Hiatus until further notice

India Like This Only will be taking a break from posting for the month of November through till the end of the year. We will resume posting content very soon.

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Eid and the Dum Biryani experience

This year, Eid in Mumbai was a scorcher. A heat advisory was issued, reminding the people of Mumbai to stay hydrated and avoid strenuous activity. You'd think that would be enough to dissuade this chef from his culinary intention of Dum Biryani. Think again. In the urban dictionary, against the term “Sucker for punishment”, there must be a picture of Chef Dama, labeled as exhibit A. Why would anyone want to subject themselves through this torture? To walk to the market when it's over 40 C/100 F outside to procure fresh goat meat, yogurt, long grain basmati rice and spices. A person in his right frame of mind would be snuggled in front of the air conditioner, doing Netflix and chill. Instead there I am sweat drenched in the kitchen, stoves on full blast as I fry a kilogram of sliced onions to make Birishta; the key ingredient in Biryani. Next, into the scorching hot fat go the potatoes. Sure the potato frying process could be skipped. But to miss out on that magic golden orange ...

A Sindhi Kadhi Experience

Being the cultural melting pot of a city that it is, Mumbai is known for its opulent and extravagant food scene. However no restaurant can capture the warmth, authenticity and love of a home cooked meal. One of my most cherished memories of my Mumbai trip was a true Sindhi dining experience, thanks to the gracious invitation to dinner by my Sindhi school friend, Deepak Choithramani. The Sindhi people originally hail from the province of Sindh, an area of great historical significance dating back to the Indus Valley civilization of 2500 BCE which is now in modern day Pakistan. This was a thriving community the country’s Independence in 1947. The partition caused the displacement of hordes of Hindu Sindhis, who were forced to flee to India to avoid persecution, forced conversion and genocide. They settled in many parts of northwestern India, primarily Gujarat and Maharashtra, and started their lives from scratch. In just a few decades of that happening, the Sindhis esta...

A Kinship with American Tea

The Plantations of the American South are an important aspect of her history. At the height of slavery, there were something like 46,000 plantations stretching across the southern states, according to the National Humanities center. The mild temperate climate, plentiful rainfall and fertile soil contributed to the reasons why these operations flourished. That and abundant enforced slave labor at that time. When traveling through South Carolina, a visit to a Plantation is featured on every tourist’s to do list, which is what I chose to do during my recent visit to the Palmetto state. The plantation I chose to visit was the Charleston Tea Garden; the only existing tea plantation in the United States. For some strange reason, I felt a deep connection to my heritage and my roots while I was there. The start of America’s story with Tea began around the 1770s, as an effort to meet the ever increasing British demand for tea at that time. Tea plantations had been cultivated in large sca...

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