Settling In in the Bush Forest

Shubra showed up at our apartment today with the wonderful spontaneity that I sometimes wish was part of my life in Long Beach . She just said, “I’ll be in your neighborhood, how about if I drop by to give you something. Here's a picture of one of the campus roads near our place that Shubra drove up to come see us today.


She arrived with a little cloth shopping bag with a few carrots, a couple little potatoes,10 green beans, two small red onions and some fresh coriander and a 1/2 cup of red lentils and announced that she would teach me how to make dal (cooked lentils eaten with rice or bread) on the spot. I’d actually tried in a pot a couple times and it came out ok, but getting a proper cooking lesson was definitely in order. My biggest problem was using a pressure cooker, which was provided but makes me a little bit nervous. I remember using one in Spain, but I haven’t had one in my kitchen ever since.

Shubra instructed me to cut the vegetables into chunks—saying that any vegetables you had would work. Then we put the chopped up potatoes, the dal, some salt and a tablespoon of oil in the pressure cooker and set it to high heat—having lifted up the little metal thing on top and dropping it down again—until a rush of air squirts out at the top—it took like 4 minutes. At that point we lowered the heat and let it cook for 3-4 more minutes. Then we put the pot under cold water and released the pressure and added the other veggies, plus cumin, and put it back on high heat for 3 or 4 minutes until it shot out hot air again. That’s it!

We feel so lucky to know Shubra, as she is a wealth of knowledge and very generous with her time. She’s teaching at Delhi University, grading all the time and working on a manuscript…but she makes time like this.

Ursula (a British woman living here with her missionary husband and 2 little kids and working on a book about Anglo-Indian art) tells us about the joys of a bucket bath—get a big, big plastic pitcher (the one provided for us is kind of measely) and pour the whole bucket over you head at the end—2 seconds of pure joy, she says. I’ve been looking for someone to talk about why the bucket bath is superior—as it seems preferred by many, so I was particularly happy to hear her rave about them!

Here's picture I took of campus while we were having tea with Ursula and a couple of art history professors after her talk. The university is officially on a nature preserve, a bush forest to be exact, and they make a concerted effort to keep it looking very nice.