Kadhi Chawal Tuesdays, The Emperor's Ring,
and Over Three Decades of the Army Medical Corps, India.

The other day someone asked me a question that had me flummoxed for quite a while. I assume, in good faith, that this wasn’t their intention at all. We were on one of the final Zoom calls for the year, waiting for others in the group to join in, and having exhausted an exchange of pleasantries and exercised ample indignations on the weather, they enquired - “What is your favorite food to eat?”. A likely natural conversation progression, perhaps, veering into the realm of holiday festivities and food. And yet, one I hadn't truly anticipated in that particularly 2020 (I prophesize this number’s continued lexical use as an adjective), home-sick, December morning.

What is your favorite food to eat? What indeed!

This hasn't been the first time someone has asked me this question. Nor, I imagine, will it be the last time I remain perplexed and flung into hours of thought over the question. The first time I heard it though, was in an Advanced Thermodynamics class, as we awaited the instructor. My friend, seated next to me, had taken the question up a notch and probed - “Gun to your head, if you had to choose one food to eat for all meals for the rest of all your life, which would it be?”.

It is this picture of a menacing someone brandishing cold metal to my temple, perhaps, having me commit to one meal for the rest of my living eternity that has led me to my current state of confoundment. Even as I type this, my mind’s eye has me drooling as I recollect splendid sushi in Tsukiji at Tokyo, waffles from near the Mannequin Pis in Brussels, egg-chicken roll at Nizam’s Kolkata, wild mushroom risotto at Big Island in Hawaii, a classic American breakfast at a diner in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. The world has so many delightful tastes.

All utterly delectable. All delightfully comforting.

But none that I would be willing to commit to for posterity. For I imagine that even the creamiest of risottos with the wildest of mushrooms would, after several days and nights of devouring, would have me craving a change.

As you have possibly surmised, the question and it’s many variations have given me a lot of (food for?) thought. Over several years, I have found one consistent contender - Kadhi pakora chawal.

I sense some resistance from you already. Kadhi Chawal?!

After all the investment in this build up, and heightened anticipation of the taste buds, kadhi pakora and white rice, despite all the adjectives in the world to spice up it’s description, may not make it to anyone’s top food to eat. Despite ample warning in the title. But in this day and age of instant gratification and perpetual strolling and refreshing of one’s feed - since you have invested so far in this read, your valuable time of unrefreshed attention, allow me to reason a little longer?

The AMC Mess kadhi pakora chawal is one that I hold in the highest regard for many reasons. But the most important of those is that it is near impossible to recreate. Have I had more distinguished kadhi chawal? On paper, yes. My tryst with kadhi chawal has had a wide range. From several thalis of it in several eating establishments in Southern India. To a Rajasthani roommate’s attempt to recreate the dish in our shared kitchen in Virginia - for which she soured home-made hung-curd and deep fried onion fritters till they were the most perfect golden. To kadhi pakora ordered from a Downtown Manhattan Indian restaurant recommendation by the Michelin Guide.I have tried them all, and then some more! And while they all have been quite nice, nothing has come even close to the one served at the Mess.

Specifically, the seemingly meek yet indomitable kadhi chawal served at any one of the Indian Army Medical Corps (AMC) Officer’s Mess on Tuesdays for lunch. Preferably consumed as a ravenous late lunch, served in a stainless steel dabba, with rice still steaming hot thanks to the insulated tiffin carrier. Accompanied with a dry-ish bhindi (okra) masala, the triumvirate must all be consumed together. A wholesome bite drawing in all the umami from the okra, paired with the onion fritters in a bath of golden yoghurt and gram flour sauce, tempered with just the right amount of nigella, fenugreek and carom seeds.

I have wondered, for long, what it is about this particular variant of the dish that makes it to the top of my favorites. I believe it is the recollection of the ravenous appetite this satiated, on many a Tuesday late afternoons. And of the many memories, alongwith.

In mid 2002, my mother had taken up a new professoriate position with the Central Government at Central India while my father was posted several hundred miles away in North Eastern India. Together, our family had come to a difficult, but intelligent and necessary arrangement of my mother taking up her dream job, while I moved to be with my father for better schooling prospects. Our tiny family had become further dispersed. And as my mother’s favorite little lamb, I had found my new Mary in my father who I devotedly followed around - from hospital to mess to week-long temporary duties.

One such accompaniment was monthly, to the DMO (Duty Medical Officer) room at the Base hospital. The DMO at any Army hospital is the doctor on call for the day. The DMO is afforded a tiny room in the hospital, and is summoned every once in a while to attend to emergencies and night admits, in addition to routine ward rounds. For me, these were staycations, long before social media popularized the term. I would have a tiny bag packed with my homework due the next day, and a quick change. These were special days and I would not walk back home with my cohort from school, rather have my father come pick me up in the Army jonga and chauffeured straight to the hospital. For a 11-year old, this was nothing short of being royalty. There, in the DMO’s suite, I would shower, change into PJs and perch upon the high ward-bed to work on homework, as Baba would take on staggering towers of daak. To celebrate finishing off of our respective tasks, we would enjoy a late lunch which the Mess would diligently pack for us in a tiffin carrier. This we would devour together, and then take a walk to the wet canteen nearby for a sweet end to the meal, and a long-distance call to my mother. A distinct memory of one such DMO day, was a particularly rainy summer Tuesday at Guwahati, Assam in 2002. It was pouring bucketful outside, and indoors, we were enjoying watching Germany play Cameroon at the FIFA World Cup. A striking Miro Klose had recently scored a hattrick, and together with Ballack and Kahn (and a nudge from my father who informed me that the Germans had lifted the cup the year of my birth) the German team had a newly minted fan in me. Cocooned from the thunder and storm, and transported via a tiny portkey television to the Shizuoka Stadium witnessing a 79’ Klose goal, and feasting on steaming hot rice and okra and kadhi pakora was truly bliss that remains unparalleled.

The Indian Army Medical Corps have chefs trained in truly perfecting the kadhi chawal. That is not to say that this perfection stops at kadhi chawal.

For Sunday afternoon biriyani is a close second. I remember one such Sunday, this, in the City of Nawabs after spending hours at the Residency and the Ganj. After a perfectly tiring school week at a new institution, I had been dismayed at being yet again, the very new and entirely small fish facing a very big, daunting, and unknown pond. Having transfered to Lucknow from Guwahati, after a year and a half of first forming friendships and even finding myself as Vice Head Girl, I was in new waters. It had been several weeks and I had not forged any close friendships yet. I deeply missed the ones from my previous school, and found it hard to break into any of the already established cliques at my new one. I wasn’t entirely sure I would ever like Lucknow. It was over our afternoon lunch together, after touring half the city, that Baba introduced me to Feluda. Having grown on a diet of Christie and Conan Doyle, Satyajit Ray’s detective fiction was new to me. Delving deep into The Emperor’s Ring - Feluda’s adventure set in Lucknow, reading about his trope visiting the same places I had been to, I found myself a fast friend and accomplice with whom to share this newness. I rediscovered that the city had much to offer, and I extended her the time and patience she deserved to form a deeper connection with me. I did not know then, but I would go on to form lifelong friendships in Lucknow, and it remains one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world. And I owe it in part to the Base Hospital Army Officer Mess Sunday biryani and raita and papad. And to Baba, who shared it with me.

There are many tales that I recollect of the Army Medical Corps. Even my decision to take up STEM, is in part shaped by the several engineering marvels that I had explored as part of our many journeys across the nation. The AMC has literally and figuratively nurtured and nourished me. I have soaked in the delicious lush green of the cantonment, found happiness friendship and conversation among the humans in olive green, observed the mantra of ‘sarve santu niramaya’ echoed in service, and cherished the many, many Army homes I have lived in across the country - from tiny studios prone to tarantulas to palatial colonial style bungalows. In my three decades, the AMC has been a part of my identity, as much as it has been my father’s.

On the 31st my father, Major General Soumyesh Nath Bhaduri, retired after a wonderfully fruitful and passionately gallant service to the nation. Along with him, my identity as an Army man’s daughter retires as well. I had planned to travel home for a grand celebration with my family this December. Covid-19 dictated otherwise. Perhaps it is better this way. I doubt that an evening of celebration would have done justice to the lifetime of experiences forged over more than three decades anyway. A General can retire from the Army Medical Corps, but the Army Medical Corps wont retire from the General. Nor his daughter. Sarve Santu Niramaya.

But, more importantly albeit selfishly, thank you for sharing your journey as a man in uniform with me - for allowing me the privilege of seeing parts of the country that rare few have opportunity to, for helping me form fast friendships in several states of the nation, for experiences to last a lifetime that entertain to date over dinner tables, and for the ability to come up with a rather long answer to the most difficult question of all - What is your favorite food to eat?