|
|
|
April 14, 2005
The chutney saga
Every year the writer prepares all sorts of apple chutneys. This year she had given an old friend 16 kilos of the treat, which apparently saved his life, writes Zahrah Nasir
We rarely get visitors after dark and particularly not during heavy snow when the mountainside is treacherous. So a thunderous hammering on the gate one evening late last month put us, and the dogs, in a panic. Something must be wrong.
It was an old friend, Zafar, with a container of home made cheese in one hand and a bag of chappali kebabs in the other.
He’d just returned from Alai, a remote valley adjacent to Kohistan which is the ancestral home of ‘The Wild Bunch’, an extended family of Pathans who run a motel, of sorts, near a hotel at Bhurban.
There are seven brothers plus a variety of uncles, cousins, nephews and a maulvi, all working around here and on whom we depend for ‘bring me’, ‘fetch me’ and ‘carry me’.
It was snowing in Alai when he left, snowing in Mansehra when he reached there and heard that both routes to Bhurban, the long `Pindi one and the much shorter Nathiagali road were closed. So he took the chance of heading over the Lohargali Pass to Muzzafarabad in Azad Kashmir and coming in from that direction.
Zafar was lucky to make it over that high, twisting pass and had to walk part of the way, but there he was, covered in snow and blue with cold from climbing the mountainside towards Bhurban as the wagon had stopped at Aliot, way down below us, where this road was also blocked.
Actually, he left Bhurban as Ramazan began, saying he’d be back before Eid. He’s months late but — that’s him.
He prefers to be home in the village than slogging his guts out over a hot tandoor. Can’t blame him.
He’s a rather overweight, dour, bearded character and off putting to strangers. Once he gets to know you though he’s fine, tells wonderful stories with exaggeration and possesses the most contagious chuckle imaginable.
The cheese, made by his wife, is delicious once you’ve learnt to ignore the ‘bits’ in it and the kebabs, brought all the way from Battagram, simply delicious.
Once Zafar got himself comfortable on the sofa by the fire, I couldn’t resist teasing him about apple chutney. He’s addicted to the stuff and had put six to eight kilos in his order as soon as he saw the apples on the trees last spring. I swear he even drools at the mention of the word.
Other members of ‘The Wild Bunch’ are equally as addicted to it and quite a few had made the same request, though only for a little bit and not such vast amounts. They even brought jars to put it in. I wouldn’t hand over any until it was almost Ramazan and then it was this visitor who came on his own. This was ominous as there were no witnesses.
As I packed the 16 kilos of chutney, apple with apricot; apple with fig; apple with raisins; and spiced apple into a big carton, I drummed into him that so much was for him, so much for the two brothers staying behind, some for the maulvi, some for this cousin and some for that uncle. Even at the time I figured I was wasting my breath and, as I eventually found out, he took off with the lot.
Brother number five, a happy go lucky, smiley sort of person, did come back before Eid and gleefully reported that Zafar had sat on all the chutney, smashing the jars to smithereens. Served the greedy guts right, too.
Last night though, well he’s had plenty of time to think about it, he explained, though never once admitting that he’d kept it all for himself, that the chutney had saved his life.
He was almost home, climbing the steep mountainside in the dark, perhaps only a couple of hundred yards from the house, with the carton of precious chutney wrapped tightly in a chaddar and swung over his shoulders when, clambering over a patch of boulders he slipped backwards and that was that.
He reckons that if he hadn’t had the chutney to break his fall he would have been seriously injured, if not actually killed himself. I reckon he was lucky not to get a backside full of broken glass.
So he sat there, (almost at the end of a 10-hour journey, by bus and on foot, not letting his priceless cargo out of sight for a minute all the way) and cried.
Now that I believe the glutton. It’s a standing joke that if I send any form of jam or chutney up to them here, he hijacks it and refuses to share with anyone. The only time they see it is when he’s eating it, mounded on a plate, with up to six parathas, for his breakfast. No wonder he looks pregnant.
Knowing Zafar, the story of how his life was saved by chutney is going to achieve legendary status. It will be pulled out and embroidered now and then until it’s unrecognizable. Then, when and if, we have apples on the trees this year, he’s going to ask for something like 20 kilos, at least — just in case.
As it was, melting snow still steaming from his ferocious beard, he kept letting his eyes drift towards the cupboard which he knows is usually well-stocked with chutney, he doesn’t know anything about the secret supply I have stashed away in the guest room, and, although he didn’t say a word, the message was loud and clear.
As he lumbered wearily to his feet, promising to send someone down to clear snow for us next morning, his face suddenly lit up with an inner glow that had absolutely nothing to do with the heat emanating from the wood burning stove.
“Just a minute Zafar,” I’d told him. “I think I can find you a couple of jars of a new variety of chutney to sample. How about apple, carrot and garlic?”
He battled his way down the snow covered front steps clutching two jars of this new treasure to his chest and glared balefully when I reminded him not to fall.
|
|
|
|
