Daily Dinner (6): A (almost) Jain Thali

Ending up with my "naani-centric" food on the table one night this week wasn't intentional. It just happened to be that I'd had to cook for lunch that morning, and I needed something that could be put together with minimal chopping and cook-time. So, I found a turai (ridge gourd) in my fridge. But I got greedy and tried to make up the quantity, so I'd have left-overs for dinner as well...and added the moong-ki-mangodi to it; ending up with my grandmother's quirky combination of turai-mangodi ki sabzi. However, driving back home from work, I realized that getting the kids to eat this sabzi for dinner would be an uphill battle, that I'd lose nevertheless; not to mention that I was craving something "soupy" for my sore throat. Which is how the "moong dal" idea evolved. It took A's observation for me to realize that our dinner that night was essentially free of all root vegetables and tomatoes to make it true to the "Jain" tradition- very similar to the dinners we'd eat at our naani's.

My dinner that night was turai aur mangodi ki sabzi and tadka moong dal with roti. Both of these sides are very simplistic, with just a ghee-jeera tempering, and salt and red paprika powder for seasoning. Absence of onions and other root vegetables as well as tomatoes, makes it very typical to the followers of "Jainism".  I've also made another batch of sweet and sour gajar shalgam ka achaar, which was ready to be tasted for the first time. I couldn't resist my 'roots' here and heaped a spoonful on my plate!

Daily Dinner (6) : Jain Thali

Tadka-moong Dal, Turai aur mangodi ki sabzi and sweet & sour gajar-shalgam ka achaar.

The turai, mangodi, and turai-mangodi ki sabzi all have stories behind them. The turai-mangodi combination is one of my least favorite ones, and I always gave my naani a hard time with it. So one day, when I was around 7yrs old, she figured that if I participated in making this, I'd learn to like it. We started with the mangodi- she soaked the moong dal, painstakingly ground it up in a stone mortar & pestle and we went up to the roof in the blistering summer heat to drop small little mangodis on a plastic sheet. That whole afternoon, my job as I sat up in a little make-shift tent on the terrace was to scare away the crows and the birds that came to steal our mangodis. Towards lunch time, naani came up and we lifted the semi-dry mangodis off that sheet and flipped them over. I saw  the summer heat shrivel up those mangodis to less than half their size by the end of the day.  And almost half the quantity, for those pesky bids just wouldn't leave them alone! The next day, I was more than eager to eat what I'd so painstakingly helped make, and I loved the taste of her mangodi ki sabzi.

Step 2: Naani took me shopping for turai. We looked and poked and analyzed colors and she bought at least half of the ones I'd selected. I still hated the turai-ki sabzi. And that's all she got from me for the next two decades. When I talked to her after my marriage, she asked me if all was well: her way of wanting to know A. I think her response when I told her that turai was A's favorite summer veggie was, "Ah! Then he must be a good man- and just right for you!"

I am glad I made this sabzi the other day...for it's a fitting tribute to the essence of my naani. As we look forward to Mother's Day on May 8th, this will be my peace offering to her. I finally made your sabzi, naani, and I think I will make it again.....and I wish you'd been around to teach my girls all that you taught me.