Independent once again

Dear dedicated reader,

I have now celebrated my fourth 4th of July here in India. On reflecting, I think that while the others that I have celebrated here may have been more involved (you may remember reports of fireworks and fire hazards over the Himalayas, an awkward but ultimately entertaining party with the Principal and his family or bottle rockets set off over the Bajipura Highway that came this close to causing an accident), this one I believe will be no less memorable.

My fourth of July consisted of only one American simplicity this year: making an apple pie from scratch for my host family. I told them a few days ahead of time that I’d like to make something for them to celebrate my Independence Day. With some trepidation, my host mother told me that that would of course be fine.

“I’m not a great cook,” I warned, “but I know how to make a few things.” No reason to get expectations too high.

In the days leading up to D-day, my host sister, Ayusha told me with delight of things that past students who had stayed with her family had made. “Didi [big sister]," she told me, "I have had cookies,” she recounted, “and cake, and pancakes, and … I don’t know, so many things.”

Great, I thought to myself, I can see that the bar had been set very low.

I racked my brain to think of something that I could make that everyone in the family could eat. At first, I thought perhaps that I would make cake – however, on inquiring, I found out that Pappa-ji, my host patriarch, does not eat eggs and I did not want him to feel left out.

Luckily, I had past holidays in India to draw upon and the day before the 4th, I remembered a Thanksgiving many years ago celebrated here in India where everyone in our apartment contributed something that their family traditionally eats. Mine was apple pie.

I also remembered, with some satisfaction, that this dessert was completely vegetarian in the Indian sense.

The afternoon of the 4th, I set out to collect the ingredients that I would need to make my pie: flour (simple), butter (simple), baking sugar (easily located in the grocery store), apples (out of season but still locatable), and cinnamon, called dalchini here in India. Since dalchini is usually used whole within dishes here, like in tea or with vegetables, I wandered from store to store, looking for what I found out was called “dalchini powder”. No place had it, and after much sweat, rain and frustration, I found myself returning home without it.

Of course, I should have realized that the reason that there is no dalchini powder available is because everyone in the middle class has someone who can grind their dalchini into powder for them. This week, our grammar review is on the causative verb form, a unique form in Hindi that connotes one not performing an action itself, but causing an action to be performed. "The servant verb," Swami-ji laughingly told us, "though you won't find that name in any grammar book. As if to demonstrate this principle, on hearing of my difficulty, my host mother immediately called our maid, Mamta (who, in general, regards me with a wary amusement), to grind some of their stock of whole dalchini into powder for me.

As I set to making the pie, my host brother Arjun and my host sister Ayusha gathered around eagerly, sitting on the counter and watching as I cut the butter into the flour, added ice water and massaged the ingredients into a loose dough. Mamta helped me cut the apples into tukare (small pieces, as I learned!) and inquired curiously into what I could possibly be making.

“It’s a pastry,” I tried to explain, “I’ll roll it out like roti and then put these apple pieces inside it.” I held up the thali (round metallic dish with high sides used for eating dinner) and indicated that I’d put everything in there.

She looked at me dubiously, but continued to cut and peel apples.

“You know how to cook?” She asked, slowly turning an apple in her hand and digging into with the peeler.

If only it were that simple, I thought, like riding a bicycle. You either know or you don’t. How could I explain that I was somewhere in between?

“Sometimes,” I answered, truthfully. “I know how to make this.”

She gave an non-committal headshake as if to say, “We’ll see” and continued to peel.

The apples having been arranged carefully in to the rolled out dough, I gave some to Ayusha and Arjun to munch on while I worked with Mamta on rolling out the top lattice pieces. Once it had been assembled, it was time to cook it in the large, somewhat glorified toaster oven that my family had, an item not often found in an Indian house. As I got ready to put the pie into the oven, Auntie-ji came into the room and looked pleased. I asked her how she had come to have an oven, such an unusual thing in India.

She laughed for a long time, then she said, “Two years ago, I thought, you know, that I would be making all these things, like pizza, pies, cakes, pastries. And Pappa-ji, he said to me, why have you taken this thing? But now, you see, the only people who have used this oven are all you people [students]!”

I laughed. “Well, then it was worth it!”

After 40 minutes, the pie was ready to eat. My host-family waited excitedly for me to cut it and add a dollop of vanilla ice cream that I had brought from the market. As I served it to Pappa-ji, he looked at me and said, “Ah, yes, Happy Independence Day!” and held out his hand for a handshake.

“Happy Independence Day to you too!” I replied, very self-satisfied.

Best,
Cat