God/Goddess of Paan

Nick-H

I have always tended to believe that if food doesn't have anything growing on it, looks the right colour, smells and tastes ok then it is ok. (with the exeption of supermarket pre-cooked stuff...)
There's a difference. Those 'This is the inside of your lungs' TV programs used to have me reaching for the cigarette packet. That is certainly denial of a kind. But the Indian equivalent might be not to watch the program, or any program anything like it, in the first place.

A guage of risk-deafness/blindness can be seen in the way a family is loaded onto a motorbike. Just one momentary imagination of what might happen in the event of even a minor accident, and, surely, nobody would ever do that ever again...

I'm sure it is not limited to India, but that just happens to be where I see it every day, and where I have seen similar attitudes in UK Indian friends. It is also in such sharp contrast to UK, where risk and restriction is drilled into us all the time to an equally absurd extent.

True, even on the personal level, certainly true on the cultural level.

laughingbuddha

I just googled paan daan, and the first link was Indian ebay! Someone is selling a small one for 199 rupees. Steel one. but not bad at all.

AvidTrekker

You might put your job at risk... reddening your lips at work.

On the other hand, some old timer share bazaar waallaas might happily demolish your paan daan. The newbies with degrees from Wharton will ask themselves "should I... ??"


Can you ever say DONT and expect obedience??

His master told Ramakrishna [later paramahamsa] "meditate on any object... but beware of the monkey... DONT meditate on the monkey" After the meditation session he said: "Master, I tried so hard, but the monkey kept jumping in my field of vision.."

OK, now the monkey... errrr the "game".

After a satisfying dinner, which had all the "heaty" ingredients, the wife is supposed to make paans with different designs cut out. The husband selects the animal or bird he fancies and puts it in his mouth... indicating his preference of "style" for that particular night. The wife counters by selecting some opposite bird and devours it as if to say "NO, not your way, but MY way". A very healthy quarrel follows.

It is settled by the game of "paan snatching". Both sit opposite and facing each other. They cannot move or get up from their seats.... but are allowed to move their torsoes and faces as much as they can to dodge the opposite party. As usual, the woman gets the "advantage" in the game. She holds a paan by the corner such that it protrudes from the lips. If she bites thru the paan she loses. [try doing this even WITHOUT a partner, its very tough]

Now the husband has to snatch the paan away from the wife's lips by the power of his lips alone, NOT by biting into...

The wife keeps dodging and manoueuvering so that the paan is not yielded to the "enemy".

Hands cannot be used.

Whoever retains the paan at the end gets to choose their style or preference for the day's proceedings... errrr i mean the night's kneadings/needings.

A warning says that this game is sooooo maddeningly arousing that couples have ended up biting each other's ears sometimes... let alone lips which are invariably injured.

Older couples are advised not to do this game. [my take on it... maybe he'll get a heart attack or something??][and die very happy with a funny look on his face?]

Of Course... today.... with BPO's and their staggered timings, this game can only be played out on chits stuck on the fridge... the couple never get to physically see each other most times...

__________________
The Universe is an ellipsoid?... or a Spheroid?? If the sphere smiles... it becomes an ellipse. This IS Creation.

SitaParityaga

Rothrock,

I was so curious to find out about gulkand...I googled it and found this recipe. If this is how it is made everywhere, I'm sure it will keep in your car on the way to the Cape.


"GULKAND PREPARATION IS AN ART
Gulkand is prepared in the following manner.
Take about one hundred pink roses one day before full moon day. Remove only the petals in evening after sunset.Take a silver vessel .Make a layer one finger digit thick of petals.Over that spread one digit layer of whole crystal sugar .Repeat this process of alternate layers till the petals are exhausted.
Make the top layer of honey and cover the vessel with a silver plate.Keep the vessel in your prayer room or pooja room for one paksha or fifteen days.
Aftr fifteen days, remix and agitate the stuff in the evening. Fill up the gulkand which is ready in a glass jar.
Gulkand is very good for ulcers, heat stroke and as a nervous system coolant."

I think your friends would be very impressed if you were to make your own gulkand!

Nick-H

From some of the things I've heard about call centres, it's more likely to be played in the office

Rothrock

That sounds like a very fun game. Should I ever get the chance I'll give it a go.

I've seen similar to the one on eBay, but nowhere near big enough to hold fixin's for 50+ paan. Also of course I'm catering to many different tastes so I need to have a lot of ingredients.

I'm leaning toward a wooden box with a faux tortoise shell finish and the decoupage on the hinged or slide out lid. (Really, I evidently have far too much time on my hands and certainly am not well!!)

Rothrock

edsita – you must truly be an evil person! (Just joking there.)

I never had it in my head to make my own gulkand, but it is totally the type of thing I would try, and now you have gone and put the idea in my head.

I think I will just get it at the store. I'm sure the stuff in the jar isn't quite up to the level of the description you found. But it is quite tasty. Got to be careful though, some is really dry and has hardly any flavour of rose.

PS: What did we ever do before google and the internet?

SitaParityaga

Before google and the internet, I was left in the vast sea of dark ignorance about any bit of information I was curious about!

I must confess....after I saw the recipe, I was also curious to try and duplicate it. I had no idea of the complexity of paan ingredients.

May-be this is a recipe for a lakh of paan....so may-be you can do it with a dozen fresh roses....get the type of rose that is not a hybrid so it will have alot of aroma...like a Sterling rose (thats purple-pink). The recipe looks like it's more time involved than needing any particular skill. Hey...give it a try!

greenchutney

avidtrekker

any illustrated books anywhere for this and other 'games' such as this..?

its not fair that if women can wear red lipstick to work that men cant have the paan stained lips/tongue...discrimination!!! ....someone file a case...the judges need a break from those goa property cases...

greenchutney

aap ka hathiyaar nahi kaam karega...........
.
there is so much paanwallah lore thats it ridiculous!!!...someone should write a coffeetable book on pan-indian paanwallah lore, the regional influences and intracies of their business

rothrock...personally i would go with kali over krishna. it depends on the image and energy you want to project i guess.....you might want to see which suits your specific daan better........i am wondering if our bollywood actors/mother-in-laws provide better shots...aruna irani with her evil village hick mother-in-law paan chewing pics.....

Rothrock

greenchutney – we haven't interacted much on the forums, but I could guess that you would go with kali over krishna. I am really torn. They both seem great.

From what avidtrekker said it would seem that krishna had the first paan so that makes him seem really appropriate.

But as you suggested there is such an energy around kali.

Maybe I'll just go to the puja store near me and see who really speaks to me.

As for the coffee table book on paanwaala lore. I would be the guy for that – assuming I ever manage to get to India and that I get my hindi up another notch.

Thanks to everybody for their ideas and interesting conversation.

alext

Thank you

AvidTrekker

Not implied.

Yes, we offer paan as naivedyam to Krishna and later take it back and eat it as prasaad. In this symbolic way, yes, Krishna continues to have the first paan even today. Even Shiva is described as taambula mukha ranjita.

If you are enamoured by the blood-thirsty aspect, you can select this figure. In her normal moods the same kaalii is called durgaa who shares the paan with her husband Shiva.

Best way... live in the "present"

Rothrock

Okay I found a nice wooden box, I'm going to go pick out a nice picture this weekend, but now I've got one more little thing. I'm trying to figure out what all I need to pack in the box. So here is my list for making good basic (more northern) paan.

chunna, kattha, supari (chunk and wafers), saunf (both plain and the candied ones), cardamom, gulkand, sweet chutney, menthol, clove, qiwam, kushbu, and coconut. What do you think? Is there anything basic that I've missed?

Also should the coconut be sweetened or plain? I don't like it much so I'm not sure which is more popular.

Rothrock

So here are two pictures of the box. I probably need to sand it a bit more, but I need to use it this weekend. So there ya go.

Thank you to everybody who helped me with this project.

Attached Thumbnails