Me First!

My favourite folk tale from Haryana …

‘Hmmm… something smells good!’

Chaudhary Maan Singh sniffed appreciatively as he entered the house, returning from his early morning chores on the farm. Having left at dawn with a thick leftover parantha and a glass of frothing milk, he was ravenous, and judging by the smell, Kalawati was frying some of her mouth-watering goodies! Ah!

He really was lucky, thought Maan as he washed his hands and feet at the pump in the courtyard. The Almighty certainly knew what he was doing when he matched a foodie like him with a fabulous cook like Kalawati. His parents too had left for the customary pilgrimage to Hardwar after his marriage, secure in the assurance that their daughter-in-law would take good care of their only son. And as for him, he just couldn’t get enough of her cooking, and had been systematically overeating ever since they got married, two months ago. Thanks heavens for farm work, or he’d have had trouble entering the house through the door!

In the kitchen Kalawati was frying gulgule and fuming: ‘Here he comes! I love cooking for him and like the fact that he loves my cooking; but he really is the limit—as long as there is anything special left, he just won’t stop stuffing himself! I cook in such enormous quantities, but not one bite do I get! I wish my duty as a wife did not forbid me to taste these gulgule before my husband, or I’d have sneaked a few before ever he set foot inside the house’.

‘GULGULE!’ exclaimed Maan as he entered the kitchen. He gazed adoringly, first at the mound of golden-brown balls of goodness piling up in the basket beside the stove, and then at his wife working her magic on the mundane flour and sugar. As he reached out for a couple, the unprecedented happened:

‘Don’t touch them!’ shrieked Kalawati.

‘Why?’ he was shocked. ‘I’ve washed my hands and feet!’

‘It’s not that …’, she hunted in her mind for a plausible reason … ‘They … they have to be taken to the temple for puja (ritual prayer) first,’ she blurted out.

‘What kind of puja?’ he asked, drawing back, disappointed.

‘Yesterday the panditji (priest) at the temple told me today is Ludhkan Chauth (ludhkan: to tumble; chauth: fourth day of the lunar month),’ she babbled, improvising wildly. ‘We fry gulgule and offer them up in prayers first. Then we bring them home and place them on the chhappar (the canopy that runs round the house). The ones that tumble down are to be eaten by the women and the ones that stay up are given to the men.’

She put out the stove and went to get ready for the temple, leaving Maan in a thoughtful mood.

‘Hmmm … that sounds peculiar! The chhappar slopes downwards, so obviously all the gulgule are going to tumble down … and she gets to eat the whole lot!!! And I’ll probably have to eat the khichdi (rice and lentil stew) or leftover paranthas she would have eaten after I was through with the gulgule … What nonsense!’

Rendered resourceful by the exigencies of his taste buds, he tied some bamboo poles all round the lower edge of the canopy. ‘There! Now let’s see how many gulgule are able to escape!’

Kalawati, meanwhile, went to the temple with the basket of gulgule and rendered prayers and apologies for her perfidy. ‘But I just can’t take it any more dear God,’ she pleaded. ‘I too have the right to eat good things for a change—something apart from the leftover paranthas that usually fall to my lot when my insensate lump of a husband is through guzzling on the goodies I make for him—I do think I have the right to at least a bite or two!’

Wending homewards, and feeling thoroughly guilty by now, she thought, ‘I can’t possibly eat all these. I’ll keep a few for myself and make up some kind of a tale and give him all the rest,’ when she saw from a distance, her Lord and Master, atop the roof with bamboo poles and ropes.

‘Oho! So it’s like that, is it?’ she thought, with the light of battle in her eye, taking in the situation at a glance. ‘Well, we shall see who wins: brain or brawn!’ By the time she reached home, Maan was back down, looking quite innocent and the bamboo poles were out of sight from the ground.

‘Hey! Good news for you,’ she chirped with a smile on her face. ‘Panditji says he’d mistaken the lunar date. Today is actually Reh Reh Paanche (reh: remain behind; paanche: fifth day of the lunar month). So, that means, that the gulgule that remain on the canopy are eaten by the women, and the ones that tumble down go to the men…’

And she sailed away in triumph, to scatter the gulgule on the canopy …

How to make Gulgule

Ingredients: (8 to 10 pieces)

1 cup wholewheat flour (atta)
½ cup sugar
1 tsp powdered fennel (saunf)
A pinch of baking soda
Oil for frying
Procedure:



Mix the flour, sugar, powdered fennel and baking soda together. Dissolve in just enough water to get dropping consistency. Cover and keep for 5 minutes.
Heat the oil in the kadahi or deep pan. When it starts smoking, drop in tablespoonfuls of the batter and fry to a light golden.
Drain and remove from the oil on a newspaper or sheet of blotting paper to soak the excess oil.
Can serve either as finger snacks or in combination with kheer (see recipe in 'Sweet Nostalgia').

Gulgule and kheer as a combination is a traditional monsoon snack in many parts of North India.

Additional tips:

Can use crushed gur (jaggery) instead of sugar to make it more nutritious.
Can mash a small overripe banana into the mixture to increase fiber and mineral content.
Can add powdered almonds into the batter to make the gulgule crisper.