Setting up an NGO to teach sustainable living !

 

The beautiful vine gifted to me by Mr Shetty from his eco friendly resort in Kundapur

It’s a dream coming true yet again for me! The use of all my education with UNFCCC, UNEP, UN Water and IUCN. A sustainable living centre being set up by the Old Boys of St. Joseph’s in my farm.A certificate course no less, a credit course to add to their college and school curriculum. How absolutely wonderful is that for me and the land I have loved with every fibre of my being. Sometimes I wonder at how God works in such mysterious ways. 

For the last two years I have mentored the ISC and ICSE kids of St. Joseph’s Boys School. Mentored them on Rain Water Harvesting and Wet Waste Composting. I even did a webinar on Menstrual Hygiene of Women! It’s amazing working with young ones, sharing all the knowledge I have been given free of cost by the UN. How they lap up all you say.

Enjoying vadas dunked in sambhar -- an OB from the US who checked out the farm.

In the farm we will set up RW Harvesting in different forms other than what we have already set up when we started the farm.  We have a huge pit into which the water of the land and surroundings pour into and percolate down into the sub-strata. By doing that the borewell we sank with my Dad in the initial stages of setting up the farm and then the subsequent bore which we sank, have been rejuvenated much to our joy. Both borewells dried up and we were buying water to water the trees. Now Narsimappa is so thrilled that we are getting water at as little as 100 feet with the rain water harvesting. Fr Saldanha of the school would be proud to see what we have achieved. He was the prophet of Rain water harvesting and told us about it when we were barely in our teens.

Enjoying fresh tender coconut off the trees

Wet Waste composting is what I do in our building and learned from my Dad and grandfather in the property we live in on Hayes Road. We have always composted the leaves and everything from the kitchen. And the garden has always been fed by the compost generated from the pit. Now we have a more fashionable pit with bricked up sides and a strong cover. But how many of the ‘educated’ in the building care to throw their waste in is the point. After all, the memsahib looks down her nose at her own waste generated and the servant has to get it out of her sight. Who cares where she throws it?

The BBMP is throwing up its hands desperately and saying they cannot handle so much waste which Bangalore generates. It will finally be fines which will turn the tide. People need fines to act sadly. So that's the whole idea of the NGO. To teach the kids young.If we educate and touch even 1% of the kids, to think sustainably,  we have achieved a lot in terms of sustainable living.

Cutting off the ripe Ramphal fruit off the trees loaded with them!

It’s my dream to have this sort of NGO, where education on sustainable living is imparted by experts to the kids. And its coming true with the Old Boys from the US all gung ho about it.  My baby school benches which are lying there can be used. School benches which helped me buy the farm with the fees I got running my preschool. 

It's come full circle and another one of my dreams is coming true. Look out schools in Bangalore and all the educational Institutions run by the Jesuits. We are setting up shop to educate you guys sustainably! 

  

 

Escape from Pakistan by Debora Ann Shea

This is the cover Debbie always had from the start!

 It was out of the blues that I met an old Convent of Jesus and Mary, New Delhi, school mate. Debora Ann Shea. She had been my sister Christine’s classmate, but remembered me well ‘cause of my athletic prowess on the tracks she said. It was a very convivial meeting in her gorgeous home on Rest House Crescent. The house had belonged to the Demello’s when we were kids. It was an old ramshackle place where many brothers and their families lived. And then going into this plush and fabulous home, my jaw just dropped and stayed dropped for the whole of our meeting. What a change the Puravankaras had wrought. We had gone over after Mass in St Joe’s,  just to collect a donation to feed the poor by the Don Bosco fathers. Her brother in Australia who was visiting had connected and asked for my help.

Debbie and me!

We sat around the swimming pool while liveried waiters served us coffee and snacks, while a smiling and simple Debbie hung on my every word and told me how she was one of the adoring younger school kids who thought I was a star. Breaking two records in a Delhi state meet did give me the star status which I always shrugged off. No big deal really but so many remember me for it!

An old family friend speaks!

And HERE was Debbie -- fabulously wealthy Puravankara and yet so simple. I always say if you are born into opulence you remain simple, it’s the ones who never had who grow an obnoxious persona, which can be terribly disgusting, to those coming into contact with them.

Interior deco so tastefully done!

She had heard I ran a book club and wanted so much to publish a book she had wanted to write on her father Commodore Jack Shea. Ok I thought wryly -- here’s another rich, would be writer who wanted to be published. I was convinced by her to read  her manuscript and give her genuine feedback. How does one give genuine feedback to a school chum? I thought after reading a few chapters. It was awful, like a schoolgirl writing an essay.  

Debbie answers a question from the audience!

BUT the story was riveting -- I absolutely LOVED her story. It was quite like no other, but how do I tell her it needed to be turned on its head by editors. I am a professional editor and charge professional fees for my work, BUT how could I charge her and chop up her work? So I took the cowards way out and connected her to a friend in the next building who also does professional editing. Keerti called me and whispered --” What do we tell her?”  I said, “ Do what you can and then send it back” 

Keerti speaks!

Poor Keerti did as much as she could and sent it back. Then as usual guilt hit me. She had been so genuine with me and I needed to give her solid help. So, I called her and asked for a hard copy of the manuscript. In minutes her driver was at my door with the manuscript and the heliconias I requested for from Rest House Road park which they maintain.  Wielding a red pen like I do as a professor, I cut and chopped, shifted chapters. I was ruthless, BUT I called and said let's talk face to face.

Moderator in action!

The car and driver were at the gate and my resoluteness melted when I saw her eager, trusting face. How can I wet and diminish her dream I thought? Tread lightly you fire sign, with no diplomacy! Tea had been laid out with onion pakoras and other yummies but I had decided resolutely to be honest. We sat poring over the manuscript for an hour. And tactlessly I began -- “ Your story is great! But it won’t get published in this state!”

She took everything I said so simply and readily I was humbled and all my red marks were accepted willingly. Fill in another chapter here -- flesh out this chapter. This sounds odd here, on and on I droned with as much care as I could and she accepted it all the sweet person that she is. I have had idiotic kids in the newspaper offices arguing wth me over ridiculous changes in their silly newspaper reports and here was fabulously wealthy and gorgeous Debbie, who was as humble as anyone could be, just accepting all my changes with such good grace.

After the videos were played!

THAT is a true success story and success story she is today. She went to Penguin through a friend -- networks always help -- and got one of the greatest editors ever -- Satya Saran who had been Feminas editor to evaluate her manuscript. As expected -- it was a story like no other and Penguin snapped it up with editors working with her back and forth and only then closing the deal. It was the pinnacle of success, to have her story published by Penguin no less.

I handled her Bangalore launch. The book is called “ Escape from Pakistan”. She could have had Bollywood stars do the launch but NO, she asked only for me! She came back to me at the launch and said, “ You said it could not be published!” -- “ in that state!” I added. I did say that to her and the story is wonderful and worth any reader's time and patience. I handled her posh launch after she had one in Teen Murthi Bhavan in New Delhi! Her father would have been proud. My book club were her guests in her fabulous home. We did not need any silly hall in any silly club. The Lounge as it is called was festooned with the most resplendent and grand flower arrangements. Debbie was radiant and all my book club members feted her, while she wined and dined us with food from the Oberoi!

I am so proud that her book is doing so well. It’s a very sad story but we are advanced enough to understand that cultural norms set down by us, should be broken if necessary. No spoilers from me, but buy the book this Christmas and enjoy it. It’s available off Amazon and cheaper off Flipkart. 

https://www.amazon.in/Escape-Pakistan-untold-story-Jack/dp/0670096202/ref=asc_df_0670096202/?tag=googleshopdes-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=545033462822&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11196916880337421363&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9062017&hvtargid=pla-1422919703692&psc=1

Drive and determination is something one has to cultivate, it’s so easy to be lazy and be a has been -- but Debora Ann Shea  has proved to be her fathers daughter and I am happy to be an important part of her close family circle. Just sad my Mum and sister Christine missed being part of the launch!     

        

Banana Bread --- an old favourite

 

We always have bananas in the house

Banana bread is an old favourite which we all have enjoyed as children. Now with the pandemic on, I have gone back to baking, which I did while the boys were growing, with their huge appetites and our very limited finances. If there were some over ripe bananas, I made them into Fritters or Banana bread which they polished off. Strangely those bananas which they refused to eat were fine in another avatar.All the faces made at the overripe fruit vanished when I fried or baked them! 

Banana bread loaf chopped up and ready to be polished off

I love walnuts in any form and adding them in Banana Bread, gives the slice a delightful crunch. Dad always bought wonderful Kashmiri walnuts for us as kids in New Delhi and our Christmas stockings always had to have at least a dozen of them, which we crushed open and savoured. 

Quick energy boosters for the boys who were triathletes.

Here’s my easy peasy recipe which has stood me in good stead over the years. It’s sure fire like all the recipes I have perfected making it multiple times, through the boys growing years.

40 minutes in my old perfect Racold which I will never sell

Recipe:

Ingre:

2 cups maida ( I love the cup measure-- no need of weighing)

1 tspn baking powder

¼ tspn salt

½ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

2 ½ cups ripe and mashed bananas

1 tbsp chopped walnuts

Method:

Heat oven to 160 degrees, while getting the mix ready.

Sieve flour, baking powder and salt.  In a bowl cream butter, sugar, stir in eggs and mashed bananas with walnuts. Then stir in the flour in two parts and check consistency. If too thick add milk and thin slightly.

 Oil baking pan and pour mix in. 

Bake in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes or till it shrinks from the side or the pick comes out clean. Switch off the oven and remove top cover inside and let the loaf brown slightly. Leave to cool and then slice with a sharp knife.

My tweaks: 1) I cut the sugar down to less than ½ from ¾ cup.

2) Slightly over- ripe bananas are very sweet anyway.

3) Freshly bought maida always tastes better.

4) Use extra walnuts if you like, but chop them up before mixing in.

No cook mango ice cream!

 

Less than half the crop we got this year

If I can find easy recipes, that's truly me. Unlike my sister Christine who enjoys making the most difficult recipes very patiently. Rather than kill myself like I saw Mum do making icecreams for us five, I just buy the Amul icecreams from Big Basket and the men enjoy the cones and even the various 1 litre box icecreams.

But I wanted to give mango ice cream a try, because we always had mango icecream as kids and no store bought one could have our wonderful Mallikas or Raspuri mangoes from the farm in it. Most bought mango icecream will have a dash of mango and not like we make at home-- the BEST ingredients.

Saved boxes of pulp for the kids

So I scrolled and scrolled the net for a good mango icecream recipe. No boiling stuff which bubbled and burned hands like Mums. And lo, there was a quick one by a lady in Canada. It had NO cooking in it and was certainly a recipe I could try. So here’s the recipe.

The Ice cream reminds me of Dads bucket icecream as kids

Fresh Mango Icecream

1 ½ cup fresh mango scooped out of 2 mangoes

½ cup sugar

½ cup condensed milk

2 cups milk

1 tspn fresh lemon juice.

Method:

Combine mangoes and sugar and blend with mixer or smash with dal hand smasher till smooth.

Combine everything else and mix once again.

Pour into a stainless steel dish and cover with aluminium foil.

Semi set in freezer-- then take it out, beat well and return to the freezer.

Serve the following day in your prettiest ice cream bowls. You can add cubes of mango or cherries as deco.

 

My recipe tweaks: 1) I dont put ANY sugar as the mangoes from our farm are very sweet.

2) Don't miss out on the beating stage as that makes the icecream creamy rather than icicled.

3) Buy a large tin of Amul Mithai mate condensed milk so you can make it at least twice with the same tin.

 

Baking can be pretty therapeutic!

 

Baath mixed and ready to bake!

I was not one who enjoyed cooking much as a child or teen, cause I had a sister who was an ace, so ---I can call myself a late bloomer. The reason is simple. I am NOT allowed by my sons to go back to work in a classroom as I am a chronic diabetic and can't afford to catch COVID. “ Nope! Sorry Mum you can hold classes on Zoom and Webex, but NO classes face to face just yet!” commands the doc son and I accept. For me staying well is all important as I want to travel to see the babies. And live too. But! Never the unforgiving minute for me and keeping busy is my style of living through the day.

So, checking on one of my Mumbai colleagues new Cooking videos, I decided to try making Coconut Baath. Why you may ask, why Baath?? Well I love the stuff and thats all I want to buy when we go to Goa. There’s this tiny bakery off the Candolim Tinto which sells the most divine Baath and even though a small slab cost Rs 400, we would buy it and enjoy every crumb.

The electric coconut scraper off Amazon!

Then! I saw Veena’s video which made it look so simple, PLUS and a big plus, my sisters Danish tenant gave me his grandmother's baking tray before he left, to remember him by. Now Johnny gets pictures of the Baath in faraway Aalborg, Denmark which is close to Aarhus where I studied for 6 months. Makes him happy and as he says, it keeps his connection with Pilerne, the place he enjoyed living in for two years.

So, one of the first videos made by Veena, who is Goan was Coconut Baath. Looking at it it seemed pretty simple and so I decided to give it a try and was hooked. I mean to date I have probably made over a dozen Baath cakes and besides sharing with my bestie who has come back here from Dubai, we polish off the stuff in house. I cut it into rectangle bits and put it in a Tupperware box on the dining table and its polished off through the week.

Slice and keep in tupperware and in a day or so its polished off.

As always I cut down the sugar content to negligible so that I can have a tiny slice everyday with my coffee @ 11 am. Making this cake also made me invest in an electric coconut scraper. I got it given to me for my birthday and have never been able to scrape a coconut quite so fast. This coconut scraped by the machine is easy to use directly in the cake.

Leave to cool and then cut into rectangles and put into box on dining table for family to enjoy. Here's the easy recipe:

Coconut Baath

Ingredients:  

1 ¼ cup ( 200gms) semolina rava 

1 cup ( 200 gms) sugar

1 ¾ cup scraped coconut.

100gms butter 

3 eggs

A few smashed elaichi seeds

Cap of vanilla essence

⅓ tspn baking powder

Method:

Roast rava for 5 mins on tava 

Blend with hand held mixer butter, eggs and sugar till fluffy.

Add elaichi, vanilla, baking pwdr and mix.

Put in coconut and mix well.

Then pour in rava in two parts and mix with spatula thoroughly.

Pour into baking tin, preferably a loaf tin for easy cutting. 

Leave overnight in fridge to swell or outside for an hour.

Bake in 160 degrees for 20 minutes till tester comes out clean.

My reductions and additions: 1) Reduce sugar to half and put 2 heaped cups coconut. 2) I use a 100 gm pat of Amul butter and use the balance butter paper to grease the tin.

Enjoy! 

 

 .  

My Mums delicious brinjal pickle!

 

Buy only these large and fleshy brinjals for the pickle

Whenever it's the season for the large big and fleshy brinjals I make Mums brinjal pickle. They are large, bottle shaped and have only flesh with hardly any seed. The ones we get in the US and UK are fleshier but I worry as to how much cancer causing fertilizer is used to get them to that size. Here in India at least they probably used sewage. Disgusting but safer.

So my help chops the brinjals -- 500 gms is plenty for our home and to give one small bottle to a tenant or friend.After chopping into small cubes I sprinkle salt on it and let it ’ weep’ for a couple of hours.

Then take a large stainless steel or ceramic coated dish so the vinegar does not react with the dish. Put in a quarter cup of oil and throw in mustard seed and jeera seeds. Let them sputter and then put in a tablespoon of ginger garlic paste with a handful of fresh curry leaves. I make the ginger garlic paste fresh, to avoid chemicals once again.

Slice and then cube them

 Put in the chillie, haldi powder and mustard seeds and let it fry a bit, then the vinegar and the jaggery instead of sugar. Mum would squeeze the brinjal cubes and throw out the water. I don't. I put in the brinjal and let it simmer for a bit in the masala and then add the sliced fresh garlic cloves.

Chop into cubes and salt them so they 'weep'!

When the pickle begins to catch, I pour in the brinjal liquid and leave it all to simmer and soften. Cover it and put the flame on low and let it simmer. Once you give it a last turn checking on whether the brinjal is cooked, switch it off and leave it in its own heat.

My pickle simmering in Mums cooking dish!

It’s a fool proof recipe and I make it wherever I go. I mean one bottle of Phataks Brinjal pickle is around 3 to 4 pounds in London  while making it , I get a large quantity of it, which works out to less than 2 pounds per try using the best of ingredients. My Mum’s  fool proof recipe is below. Give it a try -- I have tweaked it a bit using jaggery instead of sugar and apple cider vinegar rather than the chemical stuff sold here. With covid hitting my travel plans I use goan coconut toddy vinegar and it tastes as good. Avoid the chemical -- use it for your toilet bowls!

Sweet and hot Brinjal pickle.... 

RECIPE

1. Heat 3/4 cup of groundnut oil in a pan till quite hot.

2. Put in 2 tbsp ginger/garlic paste, 2 tbsp kashmiri chilli pwd, 2 tsp jeera, 1 tsp mustard pwd and 1 tsp haldi. Fry well till the raw smell disappears. 

3. Now put in 1 kg of chopped brinjal pieces with 2 tbsp salt and 3/4 cup brown sugar. Stir well. 

4. Add 1 cup brown vinegar and bring to the boil. Put in curry leaves and 20 pods of garlic sliced. Mix everything well.

5. Close the pan and bring everything to the boil and cook on simmer for around 45 minutes. Check that the brinjal is soft. Cool pickle and fill in bottles.

Here is where I made variations: 1) I used Apple Cider vinegar 2) Used 1 tbspn of minced garlic rather than the 20 cloves 3) cut the sugar down to half the quantity as I am diabetic and use jaggery instead. 4) Used mustard paste in the US rather than powder-- found in Annikas fridge. In India the seeds lightly crushed are fine. 5) Used sunflower oil rather than olive oil or peanut.
Comes out really well with the fat purple brinjal.

Eat with chappaties-- that how I love it!

Making Star Fruit juice the easy way!

 

My trees in the farm are 5 years old and fruit copiously

The first time I made star fruit juice it turned pink. I was blissfully unaware of the dangers of aluminium and how sour fruit reacts with it. I just chopped up the fruit and pressure cooked it. After liquidising I put it again in an aluminium dekchi to boil it with sugar, and it must have reacted yet again.

Over the years being educated as a Science and Environment journalist by the best scientists and minds in the world I know better. For years I have travelled with UNFCCC and UNEP and seen the world besides educating myself. BUT the most important lesson I have learned is how we humans need to live sustainably and without all the pesticides and chemicals we over use.

Hundreds on one branch

Rashme gave me a beautiful food grade plastic mixing bowl and that is used by me for everything. So last week when we went to the farm and picked a bag of star fruit, I gave most of them away to friends and neighbours in the building and kept some to make juice and pickle for the men.

I just chop the fruit into four and microwave them in the mixing bowl with some water, for five minutes and they turn golden and squishy. Leave them to cool down and go about doing your other chores.This way you save the wonderful Vitamin C in the fruit, rather than boil it all away.

Steve and I happily filled a cloth bag

Then I use a fork and put them in the liquidiser given to us by David from the US which has a tough set of blades and liquidises the boiled fruit in minutes along with the juice.

Microwave for 5 minutes after chopping into four

Then take a clean strainer and strain out the fibres or skin of the fruit and using a spoon squish it in the strainer and get a thick goldy liquid in the bowl below. Keep stirring and pressing and use gloves and press down for the final squeeze, getting all the goodness of the fruit out.

Strain out the juice after liquidising

Once you have the juice out in your bowl add sugar to taste and a little black salt. Keep stirring till all the sugar dissolves. Meanwhile take out clean glass bottles and pour the juice into glass to avoid it reacting with plastic. Do it to save yourself and your family from whatever leaches into the juice from plastic.

Golden Yellow juice or squash for the family to enjoy!

Store in the fridge and finish quickly.My guys dont even give it a week before its finished. I have shared the fruit and the recipe all over bangalore and so many have enjoyed the delicious freshness of the drink.

Getting the right tenant

My Dilkhush which I sold.

 It's a skill which we have had to hone over the last five years. With six apartments under our care, it's been a pretty steep learning curve for us being landlords. Getting the right tenant is quite a task and can take months. BUT we have learned the VERY hard way. Select them with care. You can get one who will come in and destroy all you have so painstakingly expended your savings on. Better they pay less rent than have a messy tenant.

My first lesson was the two flats I built near the old HAL airport called Dilkhush. Tenants who pay small rents are the worst, remember that.They come from less affluent backgrounds and so treat your beautiful new apartment building so badly it's shocking. Finally when I sold Dilkhush which was barely 12 years old or less they had run the place into the ground. We had to gut everything -- from toilets to the kitchen, we gutted it all and redid it and then --- SOLD it. There was no way in hell I was cleaning up behind cheap tenants again. Cost me 3 lakhs but it was done.

Gorgeous duplex flats.

That money I invested in a flat near us so we could amble down at any time and check it and a flat in Goa where I plan to spend time writing. In this flat too the owners had sold it in a huge mess. Again we gutted the toilets and kitchen and redid the whole place.We even grew a beautiful garden in six months in the little open space outside.

I gave it after much thought to a Muslim filmstar and her mother believing they would look after the place as they were women. How WRONG, utterly wrong and in six months I requested them to vacate.Our beautiful modular kitchen was covered in grease, broken swing door dustbin, bathrooms had health faucets missing, bulbs were missing, GOD!!! Even the bloody door bell was missing. 

Golden Arch

Cut it from the deposit they said airily -- oh yeah!! And who the heck has to do it?? Took six months of vetting people and finally I struck a deal with a young Sardarji. His fiance loved the garden and that was that. Periodically I get videos of the kitchen and garden and they know they will be out if they dont maintain the place.

Try renting in the West -- I know they will make you sign all sorts of sheets with details and woe should you leave dust under the cupboard or a dried cucumber in the fridge. You get fined to the tune of outsiders coming in to clean and cutting the hundreds of Euros out of your deposit. Had it happen to classmates and colleagues -- I usually learn from example!

What I know will get stolen in Hayes went there!

Here in Hayes Road we go through the gamut of all varieties of tenants. Vaastu compliant? Tramp through the flat with their shoes and muck it up. Huge families, small families, couples with huge dogs or cats or all sorts. “Haan haaan! We can use the guest bathroom for washing haandis. “ I over hear. Sorry folks, the flat has been rented is my response when the realtor calls. Haandis in the bathroom with jaguar fittings?? My sister will have a fit!! Another has a dog like a big horse. The dog is as big as the lady and drags her through the flat, while she makes flirty noises of don't Buster -- as if Buster gives a damn. Can't imagine the state of the doors once they come in. African teak -- no,no, I get nightmares. I smile and double the rent-- so they gasp and leave.

We have two BIG cars this won't do say so many great couples -- after everything seems fine and they look pleased and we do too. Our garage has been designed by a moron. We have lost so many excellent tenants because the garage does not work for them. Really?? you don't have a gym??? No we DON'T, you can run on the excellent pavements outside I say and the light bulb comes on! Or if they seem snotty say -- go to the Ritz gym.

Heliconias given by my friend Debbie Puravankara.

I proudly show off the Lazy Daisy, the fabulous Elicia stove top and chimney and the entire modular kitchen to one couple. I love my kitchen and we spent lakhs buying only the best. The lady of the house is uninterested and the husband sheepishly says -- we don't cook-- we ONLY order in!!! 

I chose a couple last week after taking time to decide for my sister, because it's much, MUCH easier doing without the rent than redoing a beautiful apartment. Then of course through the year there are various niggly bits we have to see to, but it's worth the effort because as one of my tenants learned the hard way -- don't service your geysers and aircons -- one will burn out and you have to replace it!! Oh and by the way -- people who come from Singapore are very careful. Probably the tenancy laws there are tough which is good for us.