I was in Hampi, an ancient village in the state of Karnataka and one of many UNESCO World Heritage sites in India. It’s a cluster of ruins from a previous world, scattered among boulders and palm trees, it has an oasis feel to it. It’s a really small town, a few dirt streets and a hodgepodge of buildings just strewn about like the boulders around it. It’s like stepping back in time 100 years. I was standing on the porch this morning when the vegetable lady came by, carrying a wide basket on her head. It was full of her eggplants, red onions and tomatoes. She pulled out an ancient hand held scale, like Lady Justice and dropped some weights on one side, onions on the other. Held aloft, she eyeballed it and dumped the contents into my neighbor’s bag, the weights back into her basket. My neighbor helped her get the basket back onto her head and she was off. I helped my neighbor carry the vegetables upstairs, she already had a big vessel of water balanced on her head and needed one hand to steady it, the other to hold onto the side of the ladder we were climbing… Please hit me with a scale weight if I ever complain about the drive into town to get food…
Anyhow, I took off to see the ruins. I’d wanted to see Hampi. The pictures of the chariot car surrounded by boulders, the capital of a kingdom that was now no more, the temples… It was one of those places that held my interest and was different from so much of what I’d seen. Vinny the tuk-tuk driver drove me to the ticket window location and dropped me off. As I walked up, I saw a woman sitting on a low stone wall, getting ready to eat her lunch. Lunches in India fascinate me; for something so universal, they couldn’t more different from ours in the west. All across India, I’d see people carrying their lunches in tall, stacked, cylinders of shiny stainless steel, secured by the handle on top. It looks so simple, yet really clever. A flick of the lever and the handle flips down, the cylinders are unlocked and the straight sided bowls of chapati, dal, rice, pickle and aloo bagi can now be unstacked. I was watching out of curiosity when she looked up at me and said something in Kannada, the local language. I waved the Indian wave and gave her my best “Bon appetite in Hindi, even though neither of us speak Hindi” smile and stuck a ₹500 rupee note through the ticket window, “Foreigner please.” The girl in the ticket window pushed my hand back, saying “Nai” which is “no” in Hindi. I knew that word! She pointed to the lady eating her lunch and she motioned to the container on the top of the stack. It had a few small eggplant, swimming in a green sauce with pools of red oil floating on it. She pointed to the eggplant, then me and made a hand-to-mouth pantomime. I dropped my camera bag as fast as I could and sat next to her.
Fathima Bee.
What a wonderful woman. She took a steel plate that I know was her plate and set it down. She ate off of a lid as though she planned to bring along a plate for no reason whatsoever. She lifted off the eggplant container and there were a neat little pile of folded chapati hidden in the next level. She dropped one on the plate and spooned the eggplant over it. Eggplant, onions, cumin, garlic, turmeric; heaven on a stainless steel plate, being fed to me in the middle of nowhere by a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. I tore off a piece of chapati and pinched down on some eggplant then deftly scooped up some sauce. Yeah, the ladies were impressed… I didn’t realize it, but I guess I was enjoying it too much. Fathima said something to one of the women, who then said to me, complete with the appropriate hand signal, “Slow down.” I heeded and Fathima spooned more eggplant onto my plate. There were so many layers of flavor, I made sure to slow down and savor the taste as well as appreciate the moment and what I was experiencing. More eggplant, more chapati and pickle. Pickle is a ubiquitous condiment and everyone makes theirs differently; Fathima’s was perfect, the right amount of bite and less salty than what I’d had. I was feeling guilty eating all of her food, but she just kept piling it on and then she lifted the chapati layer off the lunch pail and there was a container of dal, lentils, a staple. Hers were mixed in with greens and fried with chilis… It had the earthy taste and texture of lentils, but there was a smokey bite at the end thanks to the chilis. I was mopping up the last of the dal when she unveiled the last layer, rice. She scooped the rice on to my plate and then poured the last of the eggplant sauce over the rice. It was a wet, sloppy pile of rice soaked in goodness. I was trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with it. A security guard had come over, along with a few other curious onlookers and she said to eat the rice with my hands. I shrugged, wondering why I thought there would be another way and pinched into the mound. As I extracted my hand form the pile, there was a collective gasp. “No! No! You mix. Mix!” And the security guard motioned in an exaggerated way, to mix in a circle, then fold over, THEN pinch… I swirled the rice around in the sauce. At first, there was all sorts of consternation and angst, I wasn’t really mixing my rice very well. I tried a different pattern and there was a sigh of relief, everyone watching could breath deep and relax. The mixing was improving. Far from good, but improving. I did the scoop-pinch and brought it up to my mouth, everyone laughed and I knew I was doing something really crazy and whacky, like turning my wrist or meeting my mouth halfway… Oh the shenanigans…
When I finished, Fathima took my plate and then my hands. She suspended my hands over my plate then poured her drinking water over them. Running the water slowly over my palms and fingers, I rinsed my hands after that delicious meal. Then she took a cloth napkin and wiped my hands dry, swirled the water in the plate and tossed it out, using the napkin to wipe the plate before she put it back. I wanted to give her a hug and say thanks, but I thought it best to ask. She got very serious and said, “No. Married.” So I extended my hand and said thank you. She has the best laugh and throughout the meal I knew I was the butt of their jokes, but I considered it an easy trade for that meal. We took a few pictures together, had a few more laughs and it was time for her to get back to work and for me to get back to the nothing that I was so urgently doing. We waved bye-bye as I walked away. I gave it my best thank you in Hindi, from the laughs I knew I blew it, from the smiles I know they got it.