On Air Force Day, PANKAJA SRINIVASAN salutes the cooks and waiters without whom the IAF would have been a washed-out blue Circa 1979. My husband joins the Indian Air Force. From vatta kuzhambu and thaiyir saadam, he is initiated into a world of ‘Mess food’. He has to be in a particular uniform before he is allowed anywhere near the dining room, and once there, he has to follow strict protocol while eating. In formal occasions, no matter how much he is enjoying his cutlet, if the senior officer at the head of the table has ‘closed his plate’, he has to do the same and STOP eating. Circa 2014. My son joins the IAF. He dresses up too for dinner. And he has learnt that when he is at a sit-down meal, he has to keep his spoon in the three O’ clock position between bites and at six O’ clock when he has finished. He keeps one eye trained on the senior officer and tries to finish his cutlet before the senior does. In between the two Circa, I married Raju. And was star struck. The clink of glasses, the strapping men in uniform, and mayonnaise! I couldn’t wait to learn how to make mayonnaise. In my mind it was the hautest cuisine. For a long time after that, thick, gloopy mayonnaise was a presence in all my party menus. After marriage we stayed in the Mess for six months. So, the meals came from the Mess kitchen. I waited impatiently for the arrival of my lunch in a tiffin carrier. Yellow dal, two vegetables, a soggy wad of rotis and rice never tasted so good. And dessert. You either love or hate dessert in the Air Force. Whether it was the watery sevaiyyan with just enough milk to disguise it as a paaysam or the runny custard, I never passed up dessert. When the bigwigs came a-visiting we had ice cream with chocolate sauce served by waiters in white gloves. I will never forget eating ice cream sitting shivering next to a ‘bukhari’ in Leh at a New Year’s Eve party. They had flown in the ice cream from Chandigarh! We were blessed like that in the IAF. We got to eat the melt-in-the-mouth rajma from Jammu, the fragrant rice from Bareilly, apples, walnuts and saffron from Srinagar, apricots from Ladakh, oranges from Jorhat, coconuts from Car Nicobar… I learnt early never to absent myself from parties thrown for the Air Force bigwigs. All the fancy would be out in full measure. I remember in one such do, reaching out for a salt rimmed crystal glass with tomato juice. Before I could wrap my hand around it, the waiter deftly whisked it away. How dare I, a lowly Squadron Leader’s wife then, aspire to tomato juice and that too in crystal, the waiter’s eye seemed to say. Fanta in a Borosil glass was my destiny, not tomato juice in crystal glasses. I am still uneasy ordering tomato juice. Waiters and Mess cooks, bless them, were a legendary lot. The firm belief was that the quality of Mess food was directly proportionate to the quantum of rum in the cook’s belly. Some cooks turned out super biriyani and creamy caramel custard made on a coal chulha, while others, though game enough to innovate, did not necessarily have happy results. An air force veteran shudders at the memory of a full-baked fish proudly set on the table. “It looked strangulated and the cook had put an apple in its mouth!” Cook Sitaram in Jammu would ask hungry officers at breakfast how they liked their eggs. The orders would fly…scrambled, poached, boiled, fried…Sitaram would listen carefully, go into the kitchen and send out what the last officer had ordered, for everyone. It took some time for the guys to figure that out. After that they made sure the last guy who ordered asked for something the majority wanted to eat that day. Cooks and waiters often serve at the same station for decades and they were authoritative figures. When a young officer cribbed about the food he was served, he was sharply ticked off by Khan, the head waiter (or Number One as they are known). “Your chief sat in the same chair when he was a pilot officer and ate the same food without a fuss. What is your problem?” Chiefs have often sought out these cooks and waiters when they visited the stations on inspection, to pay their respects. Nothing stirs up emotions in the Air Force breast like the do andey ka bhujiya (two-egged scrambled eggs) made with onions, green chillies and lots of oil. And it was always ‘do andey’ never ‘ek’ or ‘teen’. Even in Ladakh, where fresh eggs froze over, we ate them. They were made with dehydrated egg powder. Food in the IAF was a familiar and constant friend. Whether it was Leh, Kumbhigram, Palam, Hakimpet, Yelahanka or Jammu, if it was a Tuesday, we could stride into the dining room confidently and be sure of finding Choley Bhature being served. There would be serious repercussions if the oily, rubbery maida bhaturas and the choley were not there. I was inordinately comforted to hear from my son that even today Tuesdays are devoted to the C&B. Here’s to Khan in Jodhpur, Sitaram in Jammu, Lingam in Hakimpet, Swamy in Yelahanka, Das in Kumbhigram, Ramlal in Leh, Nazir in Coimbatore…thanks to you we never went hungry in the IAF. Disclaimer: Most information contained in this article is confined to the period between 1979 and 2003. So it should not be taken personally, especially since the writer is off to an Air Force Day party tonight. The Hindu
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 13:20:36 +0000
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