Delhi: student unrest abates, and I get more noms

Last night the campus got the welcome news that the two JNU students arrested and jailed for sedition had been released on bail. The judge ruled that the students had no criminal record, had spotless records in school (both are grad students in history), and didn’t pose a flight risk. I read the judge’s order, and he added, without having to, that he didn’t consider the students’ behavior to pose an immediate incitement to violence, which is apparently (at least in that judge’s mind) the criterion for “sedition”—as it is for “non-free speech” in the U.S. That augurs well for the students’ fate.

The students went wild when they heard the news of bail. First, soon after the announcement was made, the students joyously erupted in a Holi-like celebration, that Indian spring holiday when people throw colored dye and water on each other.  Here’s a photo from the Indian Express with the dyed students:

Later on last night, the students marched, chanting, through the campus streets, and then 5,000 of them assembled in “Freedom Square,” where there was a huge demonstration at which both freed students spoke. I got one photo of the march:

I couldn’t understand the Hindi at the evening demonstration, but the atmosphere was electrifying, with loud chanting, slogans, and shouts of glee. You can read more about it at the Indian Express, which also has a video by a reporter:

I have my own video of the chanting last night, which I’ll post when I get back to the States.

I was told that the released students, who spoke for about an hour in total, talked not about their own ordeal of arrest and jail (isn’t that a refreshing change from the complaining U.S. students?), but about continuing injustices in Indian society, like the rape and mistreatment of women, the continuing caste system, and so on. It was like being back in the Sixties again, and I was so heartened by the students’ peaceful but joyous behavior, and their commitment to justice for all Indians, that I had trouble sleeping.

Now, on to the food. Here’s dinner last night at my hosts’: From left to right, daal (lentils), chicken biryani, spicy eggplant (brinjal), a Bengali dish with pumpkin and chickpeas, and salad. A raita (yogurt with chopped veg) is below, and each plate bears a chappati (I have to admit that my taste run toward the north Indian breads rather than south Indian and Bengali rice.

The biryani, one of my favorite Indian dishes, was terrific:

Today we went downtown for a bit of shopping, including presents for me (another bronze Ganesha for my collection) and for friends. I bought bangles (bracelets) for the first time, and the selection was huge, for almost all Indian women wear them. Here’s what I was faced with. Can you spot Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) in the mirror?

Then to an old favorite, the south Indian restaurant Saravana Bhavan on Janpath, near Connaught Place (I posted a picture of my thali lunch there last winter). We went early as it’s nearly always packed, for the food is terrific and cheap. This time I decided to have an onion rava dosa (a crispy pancake made with semolina flour; regular dosas are made with fermented lentil flour. Making them requires a fine touch and a hot griddle. They start by spreading out the fermented and liquid dough in a thin spiral (the griddle is regularly spritzed with water).

They’re then filled (you can also have them plain):

And, before you know it, they’re done: done when the upper side is still whitish. They’re shoveled onto the plate and immediately served hot, along with sambar (a spicy soup) and several types of chutney:

My dosa lunch, with a bowl of sambar and three chutneys (the coconut on far left is my favorite). A fresh banana leaf is always below your food at the restaurant.  This lunch cost two dollars:

My host, Shubhra, had a mixed tiffin for lunch, with a mini-dosa, sambar, a bowl of idlis (rice cakes) floating in spicy sauce, pongal (a rice and daal mixture with consistency of mashed potatoes) and the yellow sweet, kesar bhat, whose color comes from saffron.

The best accompaniment to a spicy south Indian meal: fresh lime soda served the right way, with freshly squeezed lime juice, an unopened bottle of soda water, and sugar syrup. You mix to your own specifications. The bottle is served unopened to show that it’s pure. If you value your stomach, never drink the water served to you in Indian restaurants unless you’re sure it’s boiled (and that’s rare in the kind of places I eat). I always carry iodine tablets and a bottle of iodine-disinfected water, which I also use to brush my teeth. That is why I’ve so rarely been sick in this country.

The only way to finish a south Indian meal is with a small cup of south Indian coffee (favored over tea in the south). It’s foamy, strong, flavored with a bit of spicem and always served in a metal “glass” inside a metal bowl. Yum!