Fever food

Besan payasam and I go a long way back. I was fourteen and severely afflicted with viral fever. Having been afflicted with childhood asthma, my illnesses are always made a big deal of. All I'd have to say was, "Ma, I'm sick," for Amma to pack me off to bed, tuck me in with a book and between intervals of taking my temperature, make dish after dish to tempt my fitful appetite. My fevers always begin with a nasty sore throat, rise to high temperatures and end with a remnant hacking cough. That one was no different.
I was promptly declared ill, plied with sour plums and banned from school. After three days of luxuriating in bed, I knew I was much better, but wasn't prepared to show it quite yet. So it was that when Verma Aunty, our neighbour, came to visit, I assumed an expression intended to convey deep suffering bravely endured, and replied in a small, weak voice while she clucked over me. Aunty, a fabulous cook, pronounced that I should be fed nutritious, sick people food and she gave Amma her recipe for besan kheer.
It sounded very interesting, so the moment she left, I sat up in bed and demanded that Amma make me some. She obliged and soon I was eating spoonful after spoonful of thick mustard coloured kheer and it made me forget my fitful appetite.

It is the sort of kheer worth faking sickness over. I should know, I've done it, many a time. Eventually, Amma caught on and now, she makes it for me, whenever she's particularly pleased. You can always tell when Amma's in a good mood, there's a pot of payasam bubbling on the stove.

Besan Payasam
Now, technically, this is supposed to be called Besan Kheer, but well, Amma insists that it ought to be called payasam, and that it was a south Indian recipe that she knew even before Verma Aunty told her. 
Besan (chickpea flour): 2 tbsps
Ghee/ unsalted butter: 1 tbsp
Milk: 2 cups
Jaggery: 1 cup
Cardamom: 2 pods
Fry the besan in the ghee, on a low flame, till it smells toasty and turns deep and golden. Once this is done, add the milk bit by bit, stirring vigorously to prevent lumps. Once this mixture starts leaving the sides of the vessel, add the jaggery and stir till it's dissolved. Now turn off the heat and stir in powdered cardamom. Serve warm, garnished with toasted coconut, if you like.

Singin' in the Rain

I just spent two miserable weeks fighting off the flu. I don't know if it was swine flu or just a run-of-the-mill influenza. As the doctor at the IIT hospital informed me (a little too cheerfully for my liking) they were all the same.
Whichever it was, it certainly wasn't pretty. I worked my way through stages of sweats and fevers and feeling too hot and then too cold and not being able to keep any food down and losing my voice. But worst of all, the world looked depressing. I'm generally an annoyingly cheerful person, A compares me to the character Alec Baldwin played in his guest appearance on Friends and I have to admit, there are some similarities. But through watery eyes and racked by the shivers, the world looked unrecognizably bleak.

Today though, I popped my second-last antibiotic pill and sang an only partially husky version of "Singin' in the Rain" to my mirror. It's good to be back.

I Hab A Cold

My body's a little strange. Generally, you're supposed to have a cold, which you carefully nurse so it develops into a fever that then merrily runs its course and leaves you with a hacking cough as a parting favour. This season, my body went all topsy turvy on me, beginning with the fever last week and waiting till I was almost recovered to launch the cold on me. I bet the graveyard cough's just around the corner too.

I've sniffled so much in class today, I annoyed myself. I've sneezed seven times in the past 30 seconds (Yes, I counted) and my eyes are watering so badly, I can hardly see what I'm typing, so please excuse any spelling mistakes. I slept this afternoon with my nose pillowed in a handkerchief, because it's been dripping like a broken tap all day. I've lost the ability to pronounce certain words properly and the moment one nostril gets unclogged, the other one fills up. I've given up hope that I'll ever be able to breathe freely through my nose again. My entire outlook on life has changed, it seems hopeless and filled with hours of shivering, red-eyed torture.

I had a bunch of whimsical posts about frivolous things like Mumbai autos and south Indian food lined up for posting here, but none of them suited my mood. I know this blog generally contains the 'Stars are God's daisy chain' type of posts, but I'm only human. I really needed to rant. And now, I'm off to bed. At ten thirty. Life can really suck sometimes.