Monthly Archives: February 2019

She chose the less-travelled path

Adoor, KERALA :

HaleemaBiwiMPOs28feb2019

Haleema Beevi, first Muslim woman journalist of Kerala, to be remembered

Her life was a crusade against oppression of women in the Muslim community. Amidst strong protests and threats, she dedicated her life for the empowerment of women in her community.

The Kerala  Sahitya Akademi is remembering Haleema Beevi, the first Muslim woman journalist of the State, on her 100th birth anniversary.

Unsung heroine

The celebration, to be held in connection with the inauguration of the national book exhibition on Saturday, will also pave the way for more explorations on the unsung heroine of Kerala Journalism and her writings, noted Kerala Sahitya Akademi president Vaishakhan.

A recent Facebook post by writer Shihabuddin Poythumkadavu on Haleema Beevi had many responses.

Available records indicate that Haleema Beevi started her career as a journalist at the age of 18. Born in an orthodox Muslim family at Adoor in 1918, as the daughter of Peer Mohammed and Maideen Beevi, she was an ardent reader from childhood. Though she was good at studies, she could not go to school after Class 7. But she continued to read.

Muslim Vanitha

At a time when Muslim women did not even dare to come to the mainstream, Haleema Beevi started a women’s magazine, Muslim Vanitha, at Thiruvalla. Later, its functioning was shifted to Kodungalloor. She later started a daily in 1946 called Bharatha Chandrika. Later, she even started a weekly in the same name. Haleema Beevi functioned as its editor, printer, and publisher.

Prominent writers

Eminent writers Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, Sukumar Azhikode, K. Gomathi, and P. Valsala had written in her publications. Haleema Beevi used to write articles related to education.

Haleema Beevi was a municipal councillor at Thiruvalla for five years. Her husband K.M. Mohammed Moulavi, a prominent presence in the struggles against Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, was imprisoned for taking part in agitations against the Divan. Haleema Beevi too had gone to jail during the Independence struggles.

She relentlessly worked for the empowerment of women. Her goal was to bring Muslim women, who were socially and educationally backward, to the mainstream.

Women’s education

At that time, the community was even against its members learning Malayalam. But Haleema Beevi argued that education was the basic right of every man and woman. She recalled that even the Prophet had called for women’s education.

She died at the age of 82 in 2000. Though her birth centenary was in 2018, nobody noticed it that time. The akademi and Mr. Poythumkadavu are on efforts to find her writings.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Mini Muringatheri / Thrissur – February 01st, 2019

Kashmir’s first Ashok Chakra for Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani

JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani. File
Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani. File

The award will be presented by President Ram Nath Kovind to his wife Mrs. Mahajabeen at the Republic Day parade on Saturday.

Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani has been posthumously awarded ‘Ashok Chakra’, India’s highest peace time gallantry award for his role in a counter-insurgency operation in Kashmir last year. He is Kashmir’s first Ashok Chakra awardee and was also awarded Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018 for his acts of valour.

The award will be presented by President Ram Nath Kovind to his wife Mrs. Mahajabeen at the Republic Day parade on Saturday.

On November 25, 2018 Lance Naik Wani was taking part in a counter terrorist operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund, Kashmir. Under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists he eliminated the district commander of the LeT and one foreign terrorist in an act of raw courage.

“In the ensuing gunfight he was hit multiple times including his head. He also injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous injuries,” the Army said in a statement.

A resident of Cheki Ashmuji of Kulgam district Jammu and Kashmir, he joined the Army’s 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) in Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004. His courage got his recognition very quickly with the Sena Medal for Gallantry in 2007. The 2018 Sena Medal was given for eliminating one terrorist from a very close distance, the Army stated.

To fight the onslaught of Pakistan supported terrorist outfits, he operated with Rashtriya Rifles units in Kashmir, the Army statement said and added, “Throughout his active life he always willingly faced grave potential threats and was a source of inspiration for others.”

Lance Naik Wani comes from a humble background and had worked for the benefit of the underprivileged section in his village and surrounding area.

Apart from his wife, he is survived by two sons Athar (20) and Shaid (18).

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Special Correspondent / New Delhi – January 24th, 2019

This Rickshaw Puller From Assam Has Built 9 Schools In His Single Effort

Madhurband Village (Karimganj District) , ASSAM :

The school was even more important for girls as “boys get a chance to go out and get an education, but girls do not”, he said.

This Rickshaw Puller From Assam Has Built 9 Schools In His Single Effort

He has opened three lower primary schools, five middle schools, one high school.

New Delhi : 

After realizing that proper education is a distant dream for his soon-to-be born child, Ahmed Ali decided not to let the coming generation suffer in privation and penury.

This rickshaw-puller from Karimganj district Assam has built nine schools, ever since he envisioned the need for education, and says “I feel it was Allah’s wish and blessings from locals that I could achieve whatever I wanted.” “I could not attend school due to poverty. People of my village were poor and it pained me to see the children there were not able to attend schools due to the same reason. I don’t want to see dropouts from poor families any more,” he told IANS during a function in Delhi where he was invited as a guest.

Hailing from a village 300 kms away from Guwahati, he often ferried children to and from their schools for his livelihood.

He has even found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Mann ki baat” programme.

Ahmed Ali established his first school in his village, Madhurband, in 1978. For establishing the first school, he sold a portion of his land and donated another portion on which the building now stands. The funds for the schools were also arranged by him from his savings, daily earnings and some from charity. To ensure fund flow, he used to pull his rickshaw in the morning and cut wood at night.

In all, he has opened three lower primary schools, five middle schools and one high school in Madhurband and nearby villages.

The school, he added, was even more important for girls as “boys get a chance to go out and get an education, but girls do not”.

The high school he had started in 1990 has 228 students today. “I could only manage to make arrangements for students till Class X. They don’t have a place to study Class XI and XII. I need both the government’s approval and funds for setting up the higher-secondary school,” he said. While hundreds of students take the class 10 exam every year, they don’t have the scope for higher education. “There is no nearby college. The nearest college is also 15 km away. I also want to build a college for students, but that will come at a later stage. First we need a junior college (for students passing Class X),” he added.

When IANS asked what he will tell Modi, he said he wanted all that the schools should be government-recognised so that funds were never an issue. “I will also ask him for a junior college and a college, if possible.”

source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> Education / by Maitree Baral (with input from IANS) / February 24th, 2019

Medal winners from remote villages hog the limelight at convocation

Seegebagi Village (near Bhadravathi) , KARNATAKA :

Some of the medal winners at the convocation of Kuvempu University on Friday. | Photo Credit: VAIDYA
Some of the medal winners at the convocation of Kuvempu University on Friday. | Photo Credit: VAIDYA

Her parents work for daily wage to meet the educational expenses of their children and other needs of the family. But keeping aside all the problems in her household, Nethravathi K.A. emerged as the topper in M.A. in Kannada, for which she was awarded seven gold medals at the 29th convocation of Kuvempu University on Friday.

Her father, Annappa, works as a porter at coffee curing units in Chikkamagaluru, while her mother, Thangyamma, works as an agricultural labourer in her native village of Kuruvangi. Speaking to The Hindu, Annappa and Thangyamma expressed pride in their daughter’s achievement.

Mr. Nethravathi pursued M.A. at the IDSG College in Chikkamagaluru. “I was attentive in class. In-depth study of reference books helped me develop a comprehensive view of Kannada literature. It is possible to secure good marks with persistent hard work,” she said.

Other medal winners

Vimala R. from Bhadravathi, who secured three gold medals in mathematics, is working as a Grameen Dak Sevak with the Department of Posts in Channagiri taluk. She plans to take the civil service examinations.

Anusha H.V., also from Bhadravathi, bagged four gold medals in M.Sc in Biotechnology. She is planning to pursue Ph.D on herbal cure for cancer. Vimochana from Chitradurga, who got four gold medals in M.A. in Sociology, said she would establish a non-governmental organisation to bring semi-nomadic communities into the mainstream.

Ali Ahmed N., who hails from Seegebagi, a remote village near Bhadravathi, secured five gold medals in M.Sc in Chemistry. He is serving with a biotechnology firm in Bengaluru at present as a research associate and plans to pursue doctorate.

Priyanka T., who hails from Rangenahalli, another remote village, secured four gold medals in MBA. She is serving as manager in the HR department of a private firm in Bengaluru. “Along with academic performance, management students should attain proficiency in soft skills to land a good job,” she said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Staff Reporter / Shivamogga – February 16th, 2019

This Harvard alumnus is working to build a crowdfunded university for students in Kashmir to study safely

Srinagar, JAMMU & KASHMIR / SAUDI ARABIA :

An academic consultant in Saudi Arabia, Mehboob Makhdoomi believes that more educational opportunities will alleviate the issues in the valley.

File photo of Kashmiri students leaving an examination center, in Srinagar (File Photo | AP)
File photo of Kashmiri students leaving an examination center, in Srinagar (File Photo | AP)

The picturesque valley that they grew up in has almost always failed to provide peace to the Kashmiris. The result? Most of them eagerly wait for their ticket to migrate to other cities inside and outside the country, study and earn a respectable job.

The aftermath of the Pulwama attacks – with Kashmiri students being attacked all over the country – has made it all that much worse. This has reopened the debate on opening more colleges and universities in Kashmir. Among the advocates for this argument is Kashmiri-origin academic Mehboob Makhdoomi. A consultant in a government university in Saudi Arabia, this Harvard alumnus is using social media to call Kashmiris all around the world to help him fund an international standard University in Kashmir.

Makhdoomi has been working on the project for two years now. While the initial idea was to open a college, he says that the aim right now is to open a university in a year — especially in light of the recent happenings. His project is also supported by the Jammu and Kashmir Private Schools United Front.

“I run the YS Makhdoomi Education Trust which we plan to expand into the university. We are planning to offer all major disciplines except medicine there. We do not have much investment for a university, which means we literally have to go door-to-door asking people for contributions,” says Makhdoomi.

He adds that the tardiness in getting the paperwork right was what delayed the process. “Nobody knows the procedure here in Kashmir. There aren’t many private educational institutions. Also, the capital shift from Jammu to Srinagar in Winter and Summer also didn’t work in my favour,” he says. For somebody who spent the first 18 years of his life in Srinagar, Makhdoomi tells us about the major issues that he had to face growing up and what prompted him to move abroad. “I was five when the Kashmir Intifada of 1989 began. I always wanted to move abroad, but still come back someday and serve my people. Every year, I spend three months in Kashmir,” he says.

At 18, he moved to Bengaluru to pursue his bachelor’s, following which he went to the US for his master’s and the UK for his PhD. “I never faced many issues during my stay in Bengaluru. Also, I’ve always felt that South India was safer for us Kashmiris because more people there are educated. They may disagree with you, but they’re always ready to listen. This isn’t the case in the north,” he adds.

What will the aftermath of the Pulwama revenge attacks be, we asked him. Makhdoomi thinks that the students will “either decide not to study or decide to take a risk with their safety at stake.” In the midst of all this conflict, this academic has one request to the authorities. “Alleviate our immediate issues. More than anything, Kashmir needs education and peace right now,” he says.

(This article was originally published in EdexLive)

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Nation / by Parvathi Benu / Express News Service / February 22nd, 2019

World War II spy first Indian-origin woman to get Blue Plaque in UK

London, UNITED KINGDOM :

The Blue Plaque scheme run by English Heritage honours notable people who lived or worked in particular buildings across London.

A Blue Plaque about Walworth-born comedian and actor Charlie Chaplin is seen near East Street Market in south London on September 1, 2017. (Photo | PTI)
A Blue Plaque about Walworth-born comedian and actor Charlie Chaplin is seen near East Street Market in south London on September 1, 2017. (Photo | PTI)

London :

Britain’s World War II spy Noor Inayat Khan was on Monday confirmed as the first Indian-origin woman to be honoured with a Blue Plaque at her former London home.

The Blue Plaque scheme run by English Heritage honours notable people who lived or worked in particular buildings across London.

Khan’s plaque is set to go up at 4 Taviton Street in Bloomsbury, where she lived as a secret agent during the war. Khan, the daughter of Indian Sufi saint Hazrat Inayat Khan, was an agent for Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II and was captured and killed by the Nazis in 1944 at just 30 years of age.

“It is from this house that she left on her final and fatal mission. Noor gave her life in the fight against fascism and her message of peace and tolerance of all religions is even more relevant today,” said Shrabani Basu, Chair of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust (NIKMT).

“The blue plaque will be a wonderful addition to the area that has a special association with Noor. It will be the first Blue Plaque for a woman of Indian-origin in Britain and is a real honour,” said Basu, who has been campaigning for the plaque since 2006 as the author of ‘Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan’.

Taviton Street is close to Gordon Square, which the NIKMT chose for the installation of a memorial bust in 2012 of the spy, a descendant of the 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan.

The Blue Plaque at her home is expected to be installed following building approval within the next few years.

“The Blue Plaques Panel have agreed that Noor Inayat Khan should be commemorated with a plaque. Once a nomination has been approved, it can take a further two or three years for a plaque to be unveiled,” an English Heritage spokesperson said.

“Noor Inayat Khan has deserved recognition for years. A hero who joined Britain’s effort to fight tyranny,” said Tom Tugendhat, Chair of the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Born in September 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and American mother, Khan was raised in both Paris and Britain.

As a Sufi, she believed in non-violence and also supported the Indian Independence movement but she felt compelled to join the British war effort against fascism. She went on to become the first female radio operator to be infiltrated into occupied France, where she was tortured and killed at Dachau concentration camp.

The SOE was an underground force established in Britain in 1940 by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill to “set Europe ablaze”.

It recruited men and women to launch guerilla war against Adolf Hitler’s forces.

Historial records show that despite being repeatedly tortured and interrogated, Khan revealed nothing and was executed by a German SS officer and her last word was recorded as “Liberte” or freedom.

She was later awarded the George Cross, the highest civilian decoration in the UK, in recognition of her bravery.

In recent months, Khan was also a frontrunner of a campaign for an ethnic minority personality to be honoured as the face of a redesigned GBP 50 note until the Bank of England announced that the note would feature a scientific figure.

Major Indian figures to be honoured with Blue Plaques in London include Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar, who spent time in the city during the Indian national movement against Britain’s colonial rule.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> World / by PTI / February 25th, 2019

Fatima and Fatima

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

Two remarkable women from the family of Wajid Ali Shah, the last king of Awadh, are reviving his culinary tradition in Calcutta, the city where he famously introduced potatoes into the biryani!

Last king of Awadh,Wajed Ali Shah,Manzilat Fatima

Manzilat Fatima is a descendent of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh who spent 29 years in exile in Metiayaburj, a Calcutta suburb. She launched a pop-up restaurant of Awadhi cuisine in 2014 and a home dining service, Manzilat’s, in 2018 in Calcutta. (Arijit Sen/HT Photo)

What do you do you do if a goose is plump beyond reason, won’t lay eggs and needs too much feed? Cook it, I guess. And that’s what the British Crown did to Wajid Ali Shah, the last king of Awadh, who ascended the throne as a 25-year-old in 1847 and was dethroned nine years later in 1856, a year before the first war of Indian Independence broke out.

The British said this was done because he lived and ate like a king and did little else, thus overlooking his military reforms, his attempts at administration which the East India Company did its best to thwart, and his immense popularity with his subjects.

Packed off to Metiyaburj, about four miles south of Calcutta, the ousted king was joined by his prime minister, some of his wives, musicians and officials. His chefs attended to this displaced court as best as they could. They prepared their master’s banquets with the lavishness of his days as monarch, so that when he sat for his meals, he would remember Lucknow as his great romance and not the painful reality of its passing.

If five kilogrammes of lamb mince was used to make a single kofta when he had been the king, they were not going to scale down, when he was no longer one.

Wajid Ali shah during his days in exile in Metiyaburj, a Calcutta suburb, wearing his trademark kurta with part of his chest exposed. His descendants say it was an expression of his heart being open to his subjects. ( Arijit Sen/HT Photo )

But how do you claim, centuries later, that one of India’s most famous ex-royal is your old man and that you are the sole inheritor of the royal cuisine he helped found? Wajid Ali Shah’s descendants Manzilat Fatima, 51, and Fatima Mirza, 45, of Calcutta are doing that, courtesy the documents of political pensions of their families on the one hand, and by cooking his food, on the other. Team Manzilat and Team Fatima, both say they are the real thing.

***

Family recipes are a cook’s real estate. Wajid Ali Shah’s descendants face the problem of plenty. At the time of his death, the king had 250 wives and 42 children so no ‘family recipe’ matches the other. The British also made sure that after the king’s death in 1887, his days in exile would go undocumented.

On Fatima Mirza’s table: Kachhe Tikia ke Kebab, Mutton biryani, Nargisi Kofta. Mirza is a great-great grandchild of the last king of Awadh. ( Arijit Sen/HT Photo )

“His successors and his subjects were left with nothing,” says Wasif Hussain, the manager of the king’s mausoleum in Metiyaburj. “I’ve heard that in Chartwell House [the country home of a former British premier, Winston Churchill], his kitchen with its tea-kettle, his flour bin, the utensil rack and the weighing machine have been left intact…. It’s a museum….”

A law graduate, Manzilat Fatima, is from the ‘ruling line’. Her father, Kaukub Meerza, a former Reader of the Aligarh Muslim University, is the grandson of Birjis Qadr, the son of Begum Hazrat Mahal and Wajid Ali Shah. Birjis was crowned king by Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar during 1857 as Wajid Ali Shah was by then in Calcutta. Birjis met his death in 1893 after dinner at a relative’s home in Metiyaburj.

This was not the first time that poisoning had killed an Awadhi royal, Sudipta Mitra, author of Pearl by the River, a book on Wajid Ali Shah’s exile, points out. Royal biographies mention a consort sending the king paan as a token of her love during their better days and the king not putting it past her to lace its leaves with poison when those days were over.

The murder of Birjis and its memory have stayed with the family for over 120 years. It has seeped into Manzilat’s remembrances of her childhood home (“My paternal grandmother would always check the food before it was served to family members”), and explains her impatience with ‘proof’-seekers. Ever since she launched a pop-up restaurant of Awadhi cuisine in 2014 and a home dining service, Manzilat’s, in 2018 in Calcutta, there are some set questions she has had to answer.

“ ‘Do I have monogrammed table-mats from Wajid Ali’s time?’ ‘Did I inherit a recipe book?’ No, I didn’t! Birjis’ murder snapped our links with the other branches of the family. His wife escaped from Metiyaburj to Calcutta…. And besides, my great-great-grandmother, Hazrat Mahal, was a queen who was fighting the British, not writing cookbooks. For a while, I made this my FB status,” says Manzilat cheekily while adding finishing touches to an order of Ghutwaan Kebab (made of mashed meat marinated with papaya) that a delivery man from Swiggy is waiting for her to complete, besides the mandatory biryani.

Manzilat makes a good mutton biryani, but with mustard oil to keep it non-greasy and light; Fatima Mirza, a school principal (she is of the line of Wajid Ali Shah’s principal consort, Khas Mahal) and her husband Shahanshah Mirza (his father Wasif Mirza is another great grandson of Wajid Ali Shah) consider the leaving out of ghee an overturning of the “basic biryani rule-book”. Both families, however, have more in common than they think.

While Manzilat’s cooking displays her control in colour, sense of proportion and spicing so integral to Awadhi cooking, Fatima, too, has considerable domain knowledge. Since 2018, she has been working on a cookbook penning family recipes such as the Kachhe Tikia ke Kebab.

“This is the only Awadhi kebab in which sattu is added and it was a Wajid Ali Shah favourite,” she says. “To neutralise the heat of meat and to make it easily digestible, hakeems advised chefs to add sattu (ground Bengal gram) as the king aged. The trend seems to have been to keep things light and fragrant.”

 

Shahanshah Mirza, another descendant of Wajid Ali Shah, with a family heirloom – a ceramic bowl. Such bowls were common in royal households. Their contents were checked by food inspectors before they were placed before the nawab. They had a special coating which would ‘crack’ if the food had poison, says Mirza. ( Arijit Sen/HT Photo )

Shahanshah Mirza, a government official and heritage enthusiast, elaborates on the difference between Awadhi and Mughlai cuisine. “Unlike Mughlai, ours has no overdose of mace or cardamom or dry fruits. We say about Urdu, Urdu aap ke zubaan pe hamla nahin karta hai, speaking it, does no assault to your tongue… Likewise, Awadhi food plays on understatement. It is big on presentation though.” Any aspiration to cheffy-ness of the standard of the former royal house of Awadh has to get the food styling right.

Wajid Ali’s descendants also make great allowances for a master chef’s ego. It was not uncommon in the heyday of the king to have his chefs refuse to cook for any other branch of the family. Some of the chefs even announced during the time of seeking employment that they were not going to expand their expertise! That is, the maker of dal would remain a dal specialist throughout his life. A biryani cook would touch nothing else.

***

The Sibtainabad Imambara, the mausoleum of Wajid Ali Shah and his son Birjis Qadr at Metiayaburj. Birjid was declared king in the absence of his father by the sepoys during 1857 and his kingship was acknowledged by the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. ( Arijit Sen/HT Photo )

In Metiyaburj, Guddu, a grandson of Puttan, a descendant of one of Wajid Ali Shah’s great chefs, drops by at the Shahi Imambara, for a chat. He talks of a dish that has the sound of one made in Awadh’s hoary past. There are few “with the stomach and liver of Wajid Ali Shah” to digest dishes like a meat mutanjan (a rice dish) now, Guddu says. But Nawabi biryani, and yes, with the potato, is everywhere.

Do kings thus prepare the future food of the people? The rich trying out the pleasures that the masses will eventually grasp is something historian Fernand Braudel has elaborated upon in his works. Rows of biryani shops of various prices line the road on either side of the king’s mausoleum. “Jameson Inn, a branch of Shiraz [an old Calcutta eatery], began to make a Murgh Hazrat Mahal in 2011,” informs Hussain, the Imambara manager. But there is a piece of information doing the rounds he would like to correct.

“The potato was added to the biryani because of its exotic value. It was a new vegetable in the market introduced by the Portuguese,” says Hussain. Both Fatimas back this view. According to Abdul Halim Sharar’s Guzishta Lucknow, considered to be the go-to book for any information on Wajid Ali Shah’s exile, the king spent Rs 24,000 on a pair of silk-winged pigeons, Rs 11,000 on a pair of white peacocks and approximately Rs 9,000 a month on food for some animals in his zoo in Metiyaburj.

“If a man could afford so much, he could certainly add more meat to his biryani and not bulk it up with potatoes,” suggests Fatima Mirza. The king would presumably also not risk his social prestige. At the evening concerts in the then resplendent Sultan Khana that had all the splendour of his palaces in Lucknow, when the Calcutta elite would visit, with thumri, there was biryani and it had potatoes. Surely Wajid Ali Shah would not have a dish served that had hard times written all over it.

(L-R) Mohammad Sulaiman Qadr Meerza with his grandfather, Kaukab Meerza, the great grandson of Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal, and his father, Kamran Meerza. ( Arijit Sen/HT Photo )

******

Mohammad Sulaiman Qadr Meerza, 9, in a yellow tee and jeans is following the discussion on food and music, and the Awadh royal family closely. When he was six, his father Kamran (Manzilat’s brother), a businessman, disclosed his antecedents. He told his friends in between classes at school that he belonged to a royal family.

His friends asked: “Which one?” Sulaiman said he was the fifth generation of Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal. They did not believe him.

Next year, when he is 10, Sulaiman has plans to grow bigger. And then he will try to convince them. He says he must give it one last try.

Kitchen confidential- Nawabi recipes passed down the family
MANZILAT FATIMA’S PINEAPPLE MUTANJAN
INGREDIENTS
  • 1 cup Gobindo Bhog rice soaked for an hour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 cups chopped pineapples
  • 2 1/4 cups boiling hot water (boiled with saffron strands and a pinch of kesariya colour)
  • 1 tbspoon pure ghee
  • 1 cup grated mawa
  • 1 clove; 1 cardamom; almond slivers
METHOD:

Take a heavy-bottom handi, add ghee. When hot, add cloves and the cardamom, then add the whole of the drained rice and saute quickly on medium flame.

Pour the hot water in the handi. Keep the flame high for 2-3 minutes, lower the flame and keep on sim till the rice is 3/4 cooked.

In another handi, scoop out the cooked rice and make a layer; sprinkle 1/2 of the sugar and 1/2 of the chopped pineapples and 1/2 the grated mawa.

Similarly, repeat a second layer, cover the lid and keep the handi on a tawa on sim. Leave for 5-10 minutes till the sugar melts and all ingredients blend well. Switch off the gas.

Before serving lightly mix the layers, serve hot after garnishing with silver leaf and almond slivers.

FATIMA MIRZA’S KACHHE TIKIA KE KEBAB
INGREDIENTS
  • Mince meat 500 gms; salt to taste
  • Bengal gram flour (roasted, powdered) 2 tsp
  • Garam Masala powder -1 teaspoon
  • Paste of nutmeg and mace -1 tsp
  • Onions -2 big ones; ginger-garlic paste -3 tsp; raw papaya paste -2 tsp
  • Green chillies -2; coriander leaves
  • Ghee for frying
METHOD:

Wash the minced meat. Fry the onions till they are golden brown. Mix garam masala, a paste of nutmeg, mace, fried onion and ginger-garlic paste. Sprinkle salt as desired. Add the raw papaya paste. Keep it aside for 10 minutes.

When the mutton turns tender, then mix the chopped coriander leaves and green chillies.

Using the mince mixture make flat round patties (tikia) of even size. Pour ghee into a pan. Heat it on a low flame. When the ghee crackles, start frying the patties till golden brown.

Drain out the excess ghee and serve it hot.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> India / by Paramita Ghosh / Hindustan Times / February 24th, 2019

 

Ammi’s sass in a bottle

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

SassyBegumMPOs24feb2019

The heat of the masala, the tart of the mango, and the bite of garlic — a surprise delivery worth writing home about

It all started with a post on Facebook. My friend Amita wrote about a harrowing experience she’d had with an online order of pickles. She was lured by some “mouth-watering pictures of plump veggies glistening with oil, sitting on golden paranthas,” but ended up feeling “foolish and short-changed”. The pickles cost a bomb, but leaked oil when they arrived. The vegetables were still raw, and she was informed that she had to keep the jar out in the sun for several days. No, that was not nice.

Pleasant pickles

I, on the other hand, had a smooth experience with a recent pickle delivery. For one, I had not asked for them, so they came as a pleasant surprise. Two, they were well-packed and leaked no oil. Three, though I could only try out a tiny bit from the two kinds of pickles that had arrived, they were rather good.

The pickles are from Ammi ke Achar, and are being marketed by a young man called Sahil Hassan, who runs a food-delivery system known as Sassy Begum. The Hassan family prepares and sells hot and delicious Hyderabadi pickles prepared with garlic, mango, gongura, tamarind, and lime.

The spicy mango achar in avvakai masala, and the garlic pickle are for ₹375 (for 300g). The raw tamarind thokku chutney (with tamarind, green chillies, fenugreek seeds), nimmakaya (lime), and gongura pickles are for ₹300 (for 300g).

I liked the masala and the tartness of their mango pickle, and the raw, edgy bite of the garlic pickle. The pickle recipes, Sahil tells me, have been in the family for generations. Some of them can be found in Saffron and Pearls, a book written by his mother, Doreen Hassan.

In my house, people have diverse views about pickles. My favourite is gobhi-gajar-shalgam – a sweet and sour pickle of cauliflower, carrots, and turnips. My friend Raj got me some of this recently, and I have been quietly licking my fingers. My wife likes the Bengali sweet pickle prepared with a berry called kul. Our home-manager loves anything that is hot and spicy, so she embraced a prawn pickle that another friend had brought for us last week. And she has been lapping up Ammi ke Achar.

Banarasi chillies

In the last few months, I have ordered pickles online from Delight Foods, and another site called Place of Origin. You get everything here — from the stuffed red chillies of Banaras to sweet lemon pickle, topa kuler achar, and jackfruit pickle.

Products from the best pickle place in Delhi — Harnarain Gokulchand in Khari Baoli — can also be bought online. From an Assamese food site, I ordered some pork pickle which was, however, not very exciting.

But if you want to make your own pickle, you could try this baingan ka achar (eggplant pickle) from Doreen Hassan’s book: Wash, dry, and cube 750g of eggplants. Soak them in salted water for 3-4 hours. Take 1 litre of vinegar. Take 30g red chillies and grind them in some of the vinegar. Grind this to a fine paste, along with 30g green chillies, 2tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp black pepper, 1/2tsp fenugreek, 1tsp mustard seeds and ½ tbsp cumin seed, using more of the vinegar as needed.

Heat ½ litre of refined groundnut oil; bring to a boil. Add the masala and fry until fragrant. Add 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 3tsp chopped ginger, and 2tsp of chopped garlic. Fry well. Add salt. Add the eggplants and 150g of sugar. Add the remaining vinegar. Cook on slow heat till the eggplants are done and the gravy has thickened. Cool and bottle.

Try it out. You will — pardon the pun — relish it.

For more information, call 9999122999 or log on to sassybegum.com.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food / by Rahul Verma / February 23rd, 2019

‘You are truly the enemies of Islam’: Indian Army ex officer’s open letter to Jaish-e-Mohammad

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

‘Any sensible person can see it’s not some cause you are fighting for, it is a racket you are running,’ writes Major Mohommed Ali Shah.

Mohommed Ali Shah | Facebook/Mohommed Ali Shah
Mohommed Ali Shah | Facebook/Mohommed Ali Shah

How dare you bunch of cowards think of calling yourselves believers of Islam?

My name is Major Mohommed Ali Shah (veteran). My family has had a tradition of soldiering for 200 years. My father retired as the deputy chief of Army Staff and was vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University thereafter. Because of his and his brilliant team’s back-breaking efforts, Aligarh Muslim University was ranked as India’s best university by the Times Higher Education Ranking, London, the most reliable ranking of universities in the world.

However, because of your ill actions, even such a fine university has to bear the brunt of having the word “Muslim” in its name. My father’s honest autobiography, The Sarkari Mussalman, which speaks very highly of the fine, secular organisation that is the Indian Army, was misunderstood because it had the word “Mussalman” in the title.

My ancestors were veterans of both the world wars. My family chose not to go to Pakistan during Partition but stay in India, for various reasons. We are the children of this soil. We are a family of proud Indians and have performed the pilgrimage of Haj.

So there cannot be a person more qualified to tell you cowards that nowhere in Islam does it say go kill anyone. You people are truly the enemies of Islam, giving it a bad name to the extent that the community is getting typecast. Today, every Hindi movie has a criminal or a gangster bearing a Muslim name.

I saw my father fight insurgency in Punjab in the early 1990s, in Manipur, Nagaland, and Jammu and Kashmir. I have risked my life on several occasions while serving in the Army in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, in both Muslim and non-Muslim areas of insurgency. However, only one community is being branded as a terrorist community because of ignorant fools like you.

Peace-loving religion

My religion (I am not saying yours because you are not Muslims; you are terrorists and terror has no religion) is actually a very peace-loving religion and talks of unity in diversity. The term “jihad”, which actually means struggle and not terrorism, has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by non-Muslims to the extent that even the national media has started misrepresenting Islam, for which terror outfits like yours are responsible. Today, all good work the Muslim community is doing is being discredited because of the wrongdoings of a few misled, uneducated, disloyal enemies of humanity like you.

The brainless “fidayeen” you have been breeding are going to rot in hell and not to any heaven as you mislead and brainwash young, unemployed, ignorant youth who have absolutely no idea what the holy Quran says. Islam is a peace-loving, scientific, logical and simple religion. There has to be an end to this madness. You people have spoilt the name of such a beautiful religion that once even I, a right-thinking citizen of my motherland India, had to suffer personally. Fortunately, my parents had given me the best gift a parent can give to their child, the gift of education. I could stand tall and fight, and teach the perpetrators a lesson they would never forget in their life. Taking up arms and killing people is not the answer to anything.

Major Mohommed Ali Shah leads an Army contingent at the Republic Day parade. Photo via Facebook
Major Mohommed Ali Shah leads an Army contingent at the Republic Day parade. Photo via Facebook

Education is the only key to progress. I am a proud Muslim and a very proud Indian, and I am qualified enough, not only because I was educated at the best school and the best college or an Indian Institute of Management but because I understand the religion much better than you do. I appeal for peace in order to be a true Muslim. You might have recruited people with little intellect who might be PhDs. However, there is a huge difference between being literate and being educated. Members of terrorist outfits like you are uneducated and should make an effort to analyse yourself, and face and understand the reality that you are not only doing great disservice to a peace-loving religion but to humanity itself. Shame on you!

My reason for writing this open letter is that I hope it reaches you somehow and, maybe, makes a difference somewhere. I truly believe the society will not change unless and until we change ourselves. I hope it reaches you and you do serious introspection, and the change begins. Violence in any form is not the answer to anything.

As Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot fight darkness, only light can do that, hate can not fight hate, only love can do that.” Muslim terror outfits must realise they inflict casualties, directly and indirectly, on Muslims themselves. Any sensible person can see it is not some cause you are fighting for, it is a racket you are running. You are manufacturers of hate. The “fidayeen” whose video I saw will certainly not be going to heaven to enjoy the hospitality of hoors as he claimed. He will rot in hell. To quote a line from the film Khuda ke Liye (which made a lot of sense to me as a Muslim) that was delivered by a great actor playing the character of a maulvi, “Deen mein daari hai, daari mein deen nahi.” There is no need to wear one’s religion or patriotism on one’s sleeve. People are intelligent enough to see what is inside a person’s mind.

Root cause

Having spent considerable time combating insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, and having risked my life multiple times in the process, I strongly believe the root cause of the militancy in Kashmir is not religion or “jihad”, as is widely believed. The real cause is that unemployed youth are extremely vulnerable and easily susceptible to brainwashing by vested interests from across the border. Educating and empowering them, making them self-sustaining will help weed out this problem once and for all. The use of arms or a show of strength can defeat them only temporarily – you kill one and 10 more will be ready to take his place. Our only hope is to win them over.

The next big question that arises is about prejudices against the Muslim community. Yes, prejudices exist, not only towards Muslims or any other community in particular, but for those who are less educated. Why would anyone employ someone who is not educated enough, or capable or suitable for the job? We have to admit that Muslims in India are not educated enough and that is the cause of all our woes. The only way forward is to educate our children.

If our children don’t get good education, they won’t have good jobs, then they won’t be able to educate their children, and so on. We will never be able to rise above the poverty line and will always be discriminated against. Education does not mean merely sending them to school. Making sure they have the right mindset is also extremely important. As Allama Mohammad Iqbal, who did great service to the Muslim community, said,

“Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehle,
Khuda bande se khud pooche bata teri raza kya hai.”

If one is educated, one can stand tall.

Finally, if we forget all our differences, if India is united, if we stand together, we have the ability to be a superpower – and we surely will be. Jai Hind!

Major Mohommed Ali Shah completed his short service commission in the Army in 2008, participating in counterinsurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. He is currently a defence analyst. He has also worked on and acted in several films, including Haider, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Agent Vinod.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Open Letter / by Mohommed Ali Shah / February 20th, 2019