You don't have to like me..I am not a Facebook status
- @chhamakchallo on Twitter

Given my recent hiatus from Facebook, this sentences does hold true. Gone are the days when I need approval from people for the articles I wrote, the funny comments I spent hours editing in my head before writing them, and the photos that I carefully select so as to get the maximum comments. 

Yes, I did all that...am sure most of us do too. 

Facebook preys on our most primal need to fit in, to seek approval, to be liked...and ultimately to ensure we are not alone. Even though the people we are 'with' are virtually present.   

Now I need to connect with people, the ones I've ignored while I was busy snazzing up my social networking life.

Are you with me? 

To all the roommates I've been with before...

They say I change roommates like the seasons change colour. In my three and a half years in Mumbai, I have shifted house six times. The only thing constant in that arrangement has been me, each house has had different roommates. When friends call me after long, the first question asked is “Are you still living with so and so?”

Is there a medical condition for being allergic to roommates? If there is, I suffer from it. If there isn’t, I take credit for inventing it. I’ve lived with seven people this far, I’m living with two now. I’ve learnt a lot, from those who have gone and from those still around.   

Living with roommates, I’ve found, is akin to being married. Initially it is the honeymoon stage- everything is hunky dory. We are just learning how to live with each other, uniting in our commonalities and arguing about our differences. My fifth roommate was a health freak who stocked our fridge with sprouts, raw vegetables and organic powders. We’ve had memorable TV dinners, she eating sprouts and curd for dinner and me munching on chicken curry, rice and pickle. She was much fitter than me.

Then there are memories of all those ‘first times’ together. My first New Year in Mumbai was spent with my two friends cum roommates at home, drinking pizza and playing board games at home. We had few friends, fewer resources and little money. It was a memorable night. My first tourist experience in the city was watching the waves at Worli sea face and taking photos with the ‘common man’.

Then the static phase creeps in- everything becomes a ritual. At my first place, evenings were spent cooking dinner and making fun of the Hindi soaps. At the next place, most evenings would find us roaming Bandra’s streets, shopping for our dinner or eating street food. Back home, she would spend the rest of the night talking to her family or boyfriend while I caught up with my dose of English programmes. Our timetables were like clockwork, barely anything changed.

Phase three is when the disagreements happen. They start at something as slight as bathroom duty and move up to major blowups involving family. The divorce is quick. The emotional scars take time.

I’ve discovered that the relationships between roommates are intricate. They are not family, they are not your better half and yet you have to treat them with more respect than you afford the former two. It’s a bond made stronger with every broken toilet, water shortage, cooking disaster, sneaky broker, mosquito attack and character assassination, faced together. You are bound by a contract so important, that if broken, can literally leave you out on the streets.

Sometimes adversity can make for fun times. Recently a bat flew into our house at Sion. The three of us spent a good part of that night screaming if it came closer, attempting to chase it away and pondering on its sudden appearance for seemingly nowhere.  My second home in Jogeshwari had a television with no remote. We would argue and then flip to take turns on who would get up and change the channel. One evening in Bandra, faced with the prospect of no electricity for the night, we decided to make the best of it and head out for dinner and dessert and a walk to Carter Road.

I've had my share of good times. One roommate has introduced me to the darker, sides of the city, holding my hand as we walk through Mumbai’s seedier lanes. Another roommate taught me how to navigate the city through its public transport- helping me with bus numbers, train timings and a smattering of words and abuses that work for both. My biggest gain, ultimately, has been increasing my social circle. Getting acquainted with their friends/ boyfriends/ family has led to many a lasting friendship.

Choosing a roommate is a matter of luck. There is not set formula. Friendships can turn sour. Unknown people can take advantage of your niceness. Family friends can act as spies. Like marriage, it is all about finding that one person and making it work with them.

In my case, I’ve decided to go with two- if one doesn’t work out, the other acts as backup!

An edited version of this appeared in DNA, May 13

Happiness is freedom from fear.

- Mad Men

Happiness is acceptance
- random thought in my diary 

Everyone around me is telling me to be happy, but they themselves appear discontent. What is it about human beings that they cannot be happy. It appears as if we choose to be sad/ angry/ hurt/ negative...does that makes us feel better? 

A friend tells me that my happiness can be found every Sunday at 6.15....that's my Mass timing. All I need to do is wait for it. Will give it a try.

Do you know someone who is genuinely happy? Give them a hug...may be it will rub off.

Collect moments, not things. 

Got this in the mail from a travel company. It has just become my new motto in life. 

Go fishing in Mahim

If you walk on the lane outside the 60-year old single screen Paradise cinema, the heady smell of fish frying to a crisp will assault your senses. The aroma works as a beacon, guiding Mahim residents to the one place that can satisfy their fish cravings, Sushegad Gomantak.

This 12-year-old eatery screams fish. If the aroma isn’t enough, the day’s specials lined up on a blackboard feature only fish. For extra reading, there is a board describing in minute detail the different fish available in India.

Choose your Poisson

Sushegad Gomantak is like your neighbourhood aunty’s house- on passing by and smelling good food, you drop by for a bite to eat or to carry home with you. Most customers walk up to the kitchen and ask for fish fry or the rechead bangda (mackerel stuffed with a spicy masala made of red chillies and spices).

Now, ordering fish is no simple task. You have to choose which fish you want, how you want it prepared and what you want as an accompaniment. Fish names on the menu are very colloquial and similar to what you would find bandied around at fish markets - the much-loved bangda (mackeral), makli (squid), muddoshi (lady fish), tamboshi (red snapper) and mandeli.

One of the restaurant’s most popular choices is xinanio (mussels) which is best eaten crispy fried, coated in a light batter. As in Goa, mori (shark) here is very common, best eaten in the ambotik (a light non-coconut curry that’s spicy and sour, hence the name).  

Crab curry

If you want to get your hands dirty, the crab masala should help you do that. Steamed crab coated with a special homemade masala, and served with a bowl of sol kadhi, a cabbage preparation and chutney, it is a meal in itself. I gather that customers have spent many a happy hour, cracking open the crab shells and removing the juicy white, lightly spiced meat. An equally delicious and messy option is the crab fry, which uses palm-sized crabs fried in the rava (semolina) and rice flour batter.

Gomantak-style

Sushegad Gomantak’s kitchen is presided over by Savita maushi, who prepares all the masalas and batter to be used. Speak to her in Konkani and her face lights up; she will even leaves her work and come and stand at the dividing wall between the kitchen and the restaurant to talk to you.  

Savita maushi grew up in a small place in Calangute, Goa where she was introduced to a variety of seafood very early. Her favourite fish then used to be pomfret, cooked by her mother. Over the years, cooking it day in and day out in her kitchen has lessened her love for that fish; she now prefers the bangda. When she was 13, she shifted with her family to Mumbai. This was in the 1940s. Living in a joint family meant cooking for around 8-10 people at every meal, a task that no doubt sharpened her cooking skills. “The food here is cooked exactly the way I have been doing it at home,” she says. It is not exactly the same, she adds thoughtfully. “I use more chillies here, the customers like it”. 

Tisreo sukhe served with cabbage and sol kadhi

Fish at Sushegad Gomantak is prepared in three basic styles. There is a simple masala for the sukhe, featuring ginger, garlic, chillies, haldi and lime which is ground together and coated on the fish. A slightly more complicated masala for the fish curries involves grinding about 25 coconuts (the day’s quota), Goan dried chillies, dhania, kali miri (black pepper), jeera and garlic till very fine. The curry is cooked by first frying onions, green chillies and tamarind, then adding the masala and finally the fish. “We use only khobrayche tel (the oil that is removed after drying coconut in the sun) got from Goa,” says Savita maushi, adding that the oil is used very sparingly. 

Fried squid - Yoshita Sengupta

Fried crabs (foreground) and kalwa masala (background)- Yoshita Sengupta

Other ingredients specially got from Goa are dried chillies, tehfal, mussels and mori. Savita maushi’s third cooking style, and easily the most preferred, is the fish fry. Every kind of fish available, including the crab, is coated in batter of rice flour and rava and fried till crispy. The batter is light and crunchy and doesn’t overpower the fish, allowing its natural juices to come through. 

Besides fish, you can also find a variety of chicken and mutton dishes here, the mutton sukha being a take-away favourite. Every dish comes with a small onion and a cabbage salad, and homemade green chutney. The chutney is made with onions, chillies, pudina, ginger, garlic and coriander ground to a fine paste. Coconut isn’t used as it would make the chutney heavy thus overpowering the taste of the fish.

Prawn cutlet

“Our cooking style is very family-style Hindu Goan,” adds her son Raju, usually found manning the cash register and occasionally helping out in the kitchen.

Savita maushi’s joint family may have long scattered and gone. These past years, however she has filled her life with feeding at even larger one. 

An edited version of this appeared in DNA on April 29