Bread....&..Happy Deepavali to you all!!!!

Bread, butter and Jam.

I was once offered a loaf of sweet bread by our next door neighbour, possibly as a gift or deed of good will or may have been an act of bribery. That was almost 30 years ago and the deed was that I had to wash and clean his bicycle, just for once, over a weekend and which I did to perfection.

I was 10-11 year old then. My obsession with a loaf of sweet bread must have been so enormous, for me to request it as a gift from our friendly neighbour rather than a box of choclate or a toy to play with.

Looking back at this on the hindsight, this obsession of mine possibly may have sprung from what I had seen and smelt at their (our neighbour’s) house and kitchen incessantly, throughout those happy school years.

Not to deny that I had all those time, reluctantly been eating bread, albeit, sparsely at home, especially the odd sloppy ones soaked in hot milk!! This happened traditionally, whenever we at home caught up with a fever or two and am sure happened to most of you, especially if you had come from the South India. I am not sure what the Northies do with, when they are ill or poorly. May be a toasted chappathi or too?

We called these neighbourly couple, affectionately Amma and Appa and they were the first ones in neighbourhood, to own a black and white, funnily shaped box with an hump, the size of a camel’s, called “Solidaire”.

Solidaire…..the magic box!!!

We used to spend ages at their home, watching with glee and excitement at their magic box; right from Oliyum Oliyum to Chitrahar; Weekly ritual of Humlog to Sunday morning awfully dubbed Ramayana in Tamil; Brilliant Saturday Malayalam Matinees to an evening frenzie of classic Hindi films before culminating in Sunday’s special evening, which would a Tamil movie.

Needless to say that most of our neighbourhood was there at their home watching everything from A to B on television those days and that included Cricket, Wimbledon and World cup Foot ball live telecasts. We Chennaites were so lucky those days and the Doordharshan was a god sent angel for us, whilst we bragged and we even watched American serials like “Different strokes”.

Those were the days!!

Right from “Yes Minister” serials to weekly weekend update on “World of sports and events” with Pranob Roy, all those opening up new horizons, for us the young souls who those days couldn’t even afford a regular daily supply of “Thina Thanthi”, leave alone “The Hindu”!

Our neighbours were great fans of Bread; obviously both of them were “Diabetics”!!

They usually devour all sort of breads in any shapes by any means; Breads for breakfast, Lunch and Supper; bread toasted religiously with butter ; clubbed with a very tasty potato curry or chutney; bread with omlettes; bread with soaked in sweet, like Bombay toast. This is actually my guess work from, what we smelt at those lunch and supper times and whatever smells emanated from their kitchen, wafting into the lounge, eventually into our hungry young nostrils, sat out in the lounge, kindling a rumbling tummy. This would especially, meticulously happen, much to our chagrin during the Advertisement or News break, during those times.

Needless to say their whole family was forced to stay and finish off their dinners in the kitchen, whilst we sat out in their lounge, eagerly looking both at their TV and at their kitchen door, and them , polishing off everything we could only smell and guess for the rest of the day.

Though we felt uncomfortable, never showed it because, we would be usually around 10 -15 of us; sat out in their lounge and with the obvious realisation that there was no way they could feed or shared their lunch or evening meal with us, children. There, we with no slightest hint of manners, sat rooted watching TV for ever and that too at no cost, FREE!!!(Whilst few others in the next street charging us 25 paise)

Well, my parents managed to buy a Television for ourselves only in 1984, when all that euphoria associated with the Black and White magic box was slowly dying and beginning to change as colour TV. Our pride was sadly a Black and white, whilst by this time our friendly neighbours had already moved on to a Brand new Colour televison, a huge, DYANORA, prompted by the Delhi Asian games.

So, I became a huge fan of Bread and butter and eventually jam, when a friendly man with one arm, opened up a Bakery next doors named “Anuradha Bakery”; Anuradha, no surprise being his good looking daughter. A big bun or a Bap sliced and coated with butter and Jam, in early 80’s would cost us around 25 paise. A loaf of white bread for 75 paise and for a “Modern” Sweet bread Rs 1.50

My liking for toasted Breads and eggs cooked in different shapes and variety grew bigger and bigger, when I visited my mate Hari Bhaskar at Coonoor, during the Medical school Years. I think, it was year 1988 and I was gob-smacked to my delight, to find toasted breads on their breakfast tables daily, along with our Idli’s and Dosai’s. The menu was never devoid of Bread and eggs!! Needless to say, I forced my Amma, on my return to Chennai,from Coonoor to get Bread and egg on the breakfast menu everyday, which continued , until I realised I was eating too many of them and in the process putting on bready pounds!

Meanwhile, my fetish with bread continued in other forms as I developed a funny taste for the fried bread, topping the Vegetable Biriyani, for which, those days, I religiously visited the Stanley Men’s Hostel, every Tuesday or Thursdays, in the evenings.

So it stopped for while, I mean, my regular tryst with Bread. However, not for long, until I arrived in UK in early spring of 1994. Whilst preparing for the PLAB exams, we tried and thrived on too many diets, which would also include Bread, Jam and few eggs for most of the mornings, which would also include Bread masala in the evenings. Bread once again became my staple and stable diet.

I think, it was the cost, which forced us in Stanley Flats, towards Bread, as even of now, I would have thought, for 5 good loaves of bed, two dozen eggs, few bottles of Jam, and a few pints of milk to finish it off, we were and even now, are not expected to spend more than £ 20 pounds a month. It is roughly £5 pounds a week and Rs 350 in Indian money.

I am not sure, if you would be able to do it in India!!

Well, the very fact that I arrived in UK with Hari Bhaskar as an accomplice for PLAB didn’t help me either; he obviously turned out to be a good toast and a delicious Omelette maker, attending to the minute details of making Omelettes with religious fervor, taking his own time, at a leisure pace, as long as he takes to finish them off!!

My fantasy with Bread got worse in late 90’s, whilst I was reading memoir “Angela’s Ashes” by Andy McCourt, describing vividly details of the extreme poverty faced by Irish miners, during a famine and their eventual journey out of it by invading America for good.

Bread, is incessantly eaten with butter and Jam in each and every other page in this book, for reasons, possibly attributed to poverty and partly may be because Andy Mc Court’s obsession to the white loaf. So, I was hooked onto Bread and Jam once again, for a while, until my better half turned my attention to few other edibles cooked by her.

Well, few basic things never change and possibly also include the ubiqutious Bread.The “Solidaire” box in time had changed to “ONIDA” and then onto SONY Bravia to SONY LCD, to LED and currently on to the 3D version. The next door neighbour, whom we once called affectionately as “Amma and Appa” are sadly gone; whilst their house, which entertained and enthralled a generation of TV viewers in late 70’s and early 80’s in our Coral Merchant street has disappeared and has evolved into a multy-storey apartment, I have heard.

Change is constant.

Well, I am chuffed however to note, that my famous BREAD, a simple white loaf, not only in the process, has managed religiously to remain the same” bready loaf” for all these heady years, possibly has become more popular than ever before around the globe, because of it’s simplicity.

Bread I love you!!

Happy Deepavali to you all.

Following information has nothing to do with this blog!!!

PS: “The baking of bread is perhaps the most important activity known to humankind. Nobody knows when bread was first eaten, but archaeologists have discovered that the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland had learned to make bread as early as 10,000 years ago. They ground wheat, barley or millet, mixed the flour with water, rolled the dough into thin sheets and baked them on hot stones.

The Egyptians were the first to devise ovens to bake bread. They are believed to be the originators of modern bread loaves which we now buy from supermarkets. Loaves of bread have been found in Egyptian pyramids 3,500 years old.

The Romans had a well-developed bread business by 100 B.C. In that year there were more than 250 bakeries in the Roman capital. The Romans had strict laws about the weights and grades of bread and errant bakers were fed to the lions. The early English paraded their skimping bakers through the streets in fool’s caps and garlands of their faulty loaves.

Today, bread is a universal item of food in most wheat-eating countries. It is also one of the cheapest kinds of food!!”