Cook / Book

Sang Kim

I envy those who cook, and I envy those who write fiction. 

I can’t cook, and I struggle every morning with my fiction writing.

I compensate for my deficiencies in the culinary arts by loving my food, and constantly experimenting.

My love for food is in inverse proportion to my ability to cook. I love food, I don’t cook.  

Over the last three years and some months in Toronto, I've have developed a palate for cuisines I couldn't possibly have imagined I’d ever eat when I was in India.

Primarily, this is because I didn’t even know they existed, or had read about them only in Vir Sanghvi’s food columns when I was in India.

I had Moroccan Tajine at a restaurant in downtown Toronto not too long ago. My friend told me that the meat was optional, but I did the right thing having it with meat. It added substantially to the taste and the aroma.

Tajine is a North African delicacy that gets its name from the earthen vessel in which it is made – not unlike the traditional method of cooking the masterpiece of Gujarati delicacy – the Undhiyu.

A few days ago, I had the Iranian Shole Zard – a delicacy that I’m convinced is a divine concoction that humans only accidentally discovered.

Some time ago, a group of friends had warm Japanese sake in small clay cups and we sat on wooden benches enjoying deep fried oysters with three kinds of sauce.

I compensate for my deficiencies in creative writing (and every day I discover new ones) by enjoying good writing, especially good literature.

Whenever I meet someone who is a natural at both cooking and writing, all I really want to do is just go back to bed, and never get up. 

And I make it a point to acknowledge their talents.

I recently discovered that MG Vassanji, the two times Giller winner, is also an accomplished chef – his Hyderabadi-style eggplant recipe is as magnificent as his prose.

Jasmine D'Costa makes exquisite chicken biryani.

That brings me to my friend Sang Kim.


Every time I meet Sang, I feel completely inferior.

He’s everything that I want to be and will probably never be.

This is how he describes himself on his Facebook page:  “Author, Playwright, Social Entrepreneur, Restaurateur, Accidental Chef.”

He is also the Co-Director of the Small Press of Toronto (SPoT), a bi-annual book fair at various venues throughout Toronto. 

Last month, I visited the fall edition of the SPoT fair to meet Sheniz Janmohamed, Doyali Farah Islam and Ava Homa.

I met Sang. too.

And he gave me yet another reason to crawl back to bed and hide.

He stood in the middle of the book fair, completely oblivious of his surroundings, and recited first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

In case you don’t know, that’s one long poem!

I was stunned; as, I’m sure, were Sheniz and Ava.

He later wrote to me, “One of my life's goals is to memorize all 10 Elegies - they say EVERYTHING.”

Sang also told me that he was working on a book and a television project called Cook / Book where he'll be interviewing Toronto writers in their kitchens and cook together.

Acclaimed novelists Katherine Govier, Austin Clarke and Joy Kogawa, have confirmed their participation in the project.

I believe Sang has also convinced Ava Homa to be a part of the project. 

It’s a book worth waiting for.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150730419885534&set=a.10150354283735534.594165.718330533&type=3&theater

Mahautsav 2009

More than two decades ago, Vir Sanghvi had recognised the power of Hindi cinema’s reach across the globe. He had said that India should devise means to use this reach to develop into a soft power.

The Indian state didn’t take cognisance of this advice. The Indian Diaspora across the globe apparently did. India's soft power is widespread and palpable today.

It was on grand display at Toronto’s Roger Centre October 9 and 10 when a group of enterprising Indo-Canadians celebrated Diwali in a style.

The Mahautsav 2009 was a 30-hour non-stop indoor concert that had all the ingredients of a masala movie.

Song and dance, remixes, devotional songs, rendition of the epic Ramayan, popular television stars from India, Punjabi rockers from the UK, multitude of local Indo-Canadian talent.

Performers included Anurdha Paudwal and her daughter, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Stereo Nation, A-Slam, popular Indian television stars. The star that had the top billing – Sunidhi Chauhan – didn’t show up.

Toronto didn’t miss her. She missed the fun.

The best entertainer at the show was undoubtedly, the Punjabi rocker Stereo Nation. It was a high decibel, energetic and highly individualistic performance. The audience was spellbound. Hip-hop artists A-Slam from Vancouver despite just one act was brilliant.

In my view, the show was a brilliant manifestation of Punjabi Power in Canada.

Popular Indian culture is a derivative of the Hindi cinema (even after accounting for the difference in languages in the south).

Thanks to the persistence of Yash Chopra over the last four decades, Hindi cinema is nothing but a portrayal of a particular kind of Punjabi culture.

Across the globe, when the Indian Diaspora meet and celebrate festivals, it’s this particular type of popular Hindi cinema culture (which huge overtones of Punjabi) that is on display.

In the developed world – especially in Britain and Canada – Punjabi Power has acquired global dimensions. In Canada, Punjabi is the fourth largest spoken language.

It’s robust, dominating and feel-good. There can’t be a better way to have a good time.

Incidentally, the organiser – Harpreet Sethi’s Grand Victorian Convention Centre and the Radisson Plaza Mississauga, Toronto Airport and Roger Nair Productions -claim the Mahautsav is a world record for the longest non-stop indoor concert.

I'm happy to be a part of such a show. Thank you Asha Luthra.

It's time Yash Chopra gets the Bharat Ratna. I'm serious.

My Country, My Life

I’ve been getting up early in the mornings lately. The long hours of daylight in spring and summer in Toronto makes the day fruitful.

Early morning (Saturday) brought good tidings from India.

The BJP-led NDA had conceded defeat in the 15^th general elections for the Lok Sabha, and the Congress-led UPA had won, albeit with just a handful of seats short of a simple majority.

I watched the late afternoon (India time) live coverage on NDTV.com, and the erudite Vir Sanghvi was holding forth on Congress’ surprising victory.

One of the news flashes that really gladdened my heart was the BJP’s acceptance that Varun Gandhi’s anti-Muslim comments and the projection of Narendra Modi as the future prime minister hurt the NDA’s prospects.

This will mark the end of an era in Indian politics for at least two stalwarts – L.K. Advani and George Fernandes. Advani can forget his dream of becoming India’s prime minister; Fernandes should forget politics. One can differ with them on their politics, but I don’t think anyone would willingly ignore their contribution to Indian politics.

Just before I immigrated to Canada, I read Advani’s My Country, My Life (and wrote about it in this blog sometime ago). The book was aimed at the English-speaking minority of India that continues to have deep misgivings about Advani and the BJP, and shapes national opinion. To his credit, Advani doesn’t make any concessions about his ideological beliefs that many continue to find unpalatable.

Advani’s propensity to remain in the news for over five decades is probably unparalleled in the ranks of the Indian opposition. To emerge from the sidelines to the forefront and from being a bit player to be a contender for the PM’s post are unquestionably remarkable achievements.

He has constantly reinvented himself, and done that with conviction. My Country, My Life give a good account the different phases of his political career.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he managed to charge the Indian political firmament with his diatribes against the pseudo-secular, left-leaning intellectuals.

The term pseudo-secular gained tremendous currency in the 1990s, and helped – at that stage – correct the Congress’s political imbalance and politics of formulating policies for votes.

However, Advani’s political career will be remembered primarily for the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Although – and this is the strangest aspect of his political personality – he did profess deep shock and grief at the demolition.

In the book, he appears to indicate that the demolition wasn’t the handiwork of the BJP volunteers. He implies that those who participated in the demolition spoke Marathi (and therefore could well have been Shiv Sena members).

Also in the book, Advani unflinchingly defends Modi in unequivocal terms, going to great lengths to explain his differences with the then prime minister and his mentor AB Vajpayee. For that alone he should have been found unfit to be the prime minister of India. People of India, too, share this view; at least for the moment.

However, the new breed of leaders in the BJP that will now replace Advani and the old guard, don’t possess even a modicum of Advani’s sincerity and intellect. Narendra Modi can administer very well; but he can’t administer without malice against a section of population that needs the state’s protection, but gets only systematic pogroms.