We arrived at Sita center before 10 am for the class. There were 7 of us and we piled into 3 tuktuks and headed to the market. The market reminded me of the one in Jerusalem, lots of narrow corridors where small niches hold stands of various wares. There were lots of vegetable sellers, paan leaves, banana leaves (used for plates), camel leaves (used for bowls, spices, garlic, ginger, turmeric, mountains of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, poppy seeds, etc. Each stall yelling the virtues of their wares at the top of their lungs.
There was barely enough room in the corridors for 2 people to walk side by side, let alone allow 2 way traffic. Scurrying back and forth were vendors bringing in merchandise or taking out large bags of rice, onions, potatoes, whatever.
It turns out that this day is a special day, it is a blue moon. On full and new moons, Pondy goes dry and totally veg. Every bar in town was closed and there was no meat to be purchased at the market.
We got back into 3 more tuktuks and headed off back to the center to begin our preparations of the meal. Bill was in charge of grating the carrots for the dessert, we peeled potatoes, diced tomatoes, onions, and cauliflower.
We were having vegetable korma and eggplant curry, jeera rice (which is plain rice with cumin seeds), plain rice, dhal, and the carrot halwa.
The veggies for the korma were first boiled until semi cooked, while the sauce was prepared. The sauces was ginger and garlic ground together into a paste, coconut meat, cashews, white poppy seeds, a little water and ground into a paste as well.
The eggplants were deep fried first and then the flavorings were added, garlic, various spices and tamarind juice. Both dishes were very good, not spicy, and very flavorful.
There was a Kiwi Dr. attending, Claire and we had coffee with her after the class. She was heading to Vellore to give a talk at a conference of Drs. We parted ways at JN street and headed into Bata to find some colored socks for Bill. White socks were just not going to cut it any longer.
Bill found his “frenchie” brand socks and we stumbled on a philatelic center. I left Bill to enjoy his stamp hunting. My throat was getting sore and I was dead tired.
Bill returned and decided to take a walk in search of dinner in a different direction than we usually have. We headed to south street and walked passed the train station. We ended up circling back to Mission Street as there were no eateries that looked inviting. We ended up at Suguru, which has several outposts around town. We weren’t really hungry, but ordered dosas. They were really good. The chutneys accompanying them were excellent, coconut, tomato, sambar, and a potato masala that came with mine. Bill ordered the Pondy Dosa, and I got the Rava onion masala dosa. In reading while waiting for our food, I found out that rava is made with semolina and a regular dosa is made with rice.
I was really tired and felt like the cold was really taking hold. While I showered, Bill found this very strange and unique sport on TV called Khabbadi. It is kind of a team game of tag. The goal is to tag out someone on the other side of the lined court and get back to “safe” without being captured or tackled. I think that points are awarded based on where you capture a player, or if he is swarmed on his own side and you can free your captured team mate. Very confusing.
I crashed out, and I think Bill did shortly there after.
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