A spicy treat for bland palates
Nivedita Sharma

SOBIA Khan left her home town, Nagpur, in 1992 and descended on Mumbai with a zest to expand her creative horizons. Merely 22 years old at the time, Sobia faced, and came out tops, many a challenge in the big bad city.

Today, her quaint little restaurant, Hyderabad Blues, in a quiet corner of suburban Bandra, has spiced up the lives of many an enthusiast. Over a tasteful conversation this mistress of Hyderabadi spices reveals what a little potli masala (little bag of spices) can do to everyday meals. Sobia's light-eyed and smiling face belies the businesswoman in her.

Perhaps Sobia is better described as an entrepreneur; her father used to tell her elder brother "you can learn a thing or two from her"! "My mother's family lived in Nagpur for ages," says Sobia, "and my mother has been famous for her 'delectable dawaats' (feasts)." Incidentally, her mother excelled in sports too; she played hockey way back in the 1950s. And Sobia's grandfather amply clarified the family's unorthodox views: "Too bad if some wanted to watch her legs and not her talent on the field!"

However, her passion for cooking won over dribbling the ball on the field. And daughter Sobia walked into her mother's traditional kitchen at the age of eight. In her family, as with many others, there were secret recipes that weren't passed on to all the daughters. Such recipes were shared only with those trusted to carry on the tradition. As Sobia says, "I went through an initiation ceremony before any secrets were revealed to me." The initiate had to make sheera (a sweet preparation) for an auspicious beginning into the world of art cooking.

Although she studied medicine at the Government Medical College, Nagpur, Sobia decided she preferred to experiment and create in the kitchen. For some time, she joined her brother in setting up and managing canteens in West Bengal and Orissa. Finally, Sobia decided she wanted to be in the city of opportunities - Mumbai. "What I like about Mumbai is that it offers a spirit of encouragement. It allows you to establish your credentials rather than asking who you are." Sobia found "a freedom of expression," and she made friends while she did some merchandising with the help of a few cousins. Fortunately, her family did not worry about her. "I have been allowed my space and my family supports anything I do. They knew I could make it anywhere with my skills." Did she ever face problems? "Yes I did struggle, tried all sorts of things. I even got into exports at one time." A maverick by nature, Sobia continued to experiment with various things till she realised her forte was in her culinary talents. Friends often requested her to cook this dish today or that one tomorrow. So she felt she could weave her gift at cooking with her inborn "commercial sense". The result was a restaurant. Along with her partner, Bobby, she chose a Hyderabadi menu, something that was not easily available in the city. "We are basically from the Hyderabad lineage. And the name 'Hyderabad Blues' seemed catchy. But it is the menu, selected with great care, which is responsible for the restaurant's repeat value," says Sobia.

The erstwhile Maharaja of Bhavnagar has dined here with his wife; gourmet Siddarth Kak and his wife Geeta also loved the food. And the eatery is popular with several television stars looking for authentic Hyderabadi cuisine. Sobia trained five chefs over a period of five months before starting the restaurant. "Most people think Hyderabadi food is mostly non-vegetarian.

But my menu includes plenty of choice for vegetarians as well."

Isn't the food very rich and aren't people more health conscious nowadays? "I kept that in mind and reduced the oil without making other changes in the recipes. One cannot eat rich food every day; but once in a while one can indulge in good food." Hyderabadi cuisine is quite different from the Lakhnavi cuisine even though both originated and developed during the time of the Mughals in India. In the South, people tended to incorporate a lot of local flavour in their food. The household of the Nizam of Hyderabad experimented with local spices too; it made the food more hot, more sour and tangy compared to its northern counterpart. While traditional Lakhnavi food uses more dry fruit paste as a base for masalas, it is also richer and closer to Mughalai cooking. Hyderabadi cuisine uses coconut and poppy seeds (khus khus), and sometimes groundnut paste. Sobia, however, does not "believe in any fusion. They spoil the taste. Even when I make any thing Arabic or Lebanese I make sure I don't tamper with the original recipe." Some of her most popular dishes include Mirch Ka Saalan, Bhagare Baingan, Haleem, Ande Ka Halwa, Lukani Kabab and Badam Ke Lauz. Hyderabad Blues offers very reasonably priced meals.

Sobia speaks of a rare potli ka masala she couldn't find in Mumbai. She looked for it in Hyderabad and almost despaired. "Until, in an old galli (narrow lane) I found two women who still made it!" Tied in soft cotton, the spices in the potli are a secret Sobia will simply not divulge. "You have to believe in what you can do and what you want to do," declares Sobia. According to her, success can't be achieved overnight whether you are a man or woman. "Sometimes men think women are meant for certain jobs only. Then you put them in their place by proving your credentials."

Tackling teens
Forge bonds that transcend teen tantrums
Rajshree Sarda

TEENAGERS are a puzzle to themselves, their friends and their parents. Because of the fact that they are going through cataclysmic changes, they often do not understand their own thoughts and feelings.

One such class 12 student came to me and said, "Do you know who I am? I am a comma." I said that I did not understand what she meant by that. Her retort was: "Well whenever I talk to my father, he stops talking but when I am finished, he starts right up again as if I hadn’t said a thing. I am just a comma in the middle of his speeches."

If teenagers can pour out their hearts to a counsellor it is because they perceive that they are not going to be condemned for having problems. A counsellor is also not likely to give them quick easy advise that does not work in the real world.

Many of these children will pour out their hearts to their parents too, if only they were assured their parents would listen. Most parents make the mistake of telling first and listening second (if at all). Almost often, the case with teens is that they only want to see if their parents love them enough to listen to them and value their opinions. Parents often complain that their children do not tell them about their dreams and desires. The reason teenagers are silent and uncommunicative with their parents is due to the fact that the parents over-react to whatever they share with the former. Therefore, it is important for the parents not to instantly condemn or correct. Realise that the adolescent’s openness is a clear statement of trust and do not violate that trust.

A teenager determines things such as his value, abilities and worth as a person by his parents’ attitudes and actions towards him. If parents are loving and kind, then they are very good mirrors of a child’s worth. Generally children in these homes grow up with a healthy sense of identity. But like ‘carnival mirrors ‘ parental mirrors too can be distorted. The more distorted the mirror, the more distorted the image.

If the child perceives a reflection of being unsafe, unloved, he begins to develop problems with his identity as well with his/her relationships. Remember if some one has only one distorted mirror to look in to everyday, he may believe that it is himself not the mirror which is distorted. In the adolescent tears, teens change mirrors. They no longer look to their parents for their identity. Instead, they look to their peers. The choice of peers in this period of their lives is more important than almost any other choice. Therefore conflict is not a surprising facet of the relationship between parents and teenagers.

I remember a specific conflict I used to have with my mother on a weekly basis. I was the fun-loving, active teenager who struggled with the idea of cleanliness, especially when the cleaning lady would come to clean our house. I never grasped the concept of why I had to clean the house before the cleaning person arrived.

This made no logical sense to me as a teenager and week after week, my mother and I would battle over me having to clean the house. You see in my mind, somewhat typical of most teenagers, I did not think she was the cleaning lady. To me, she was the judge. She was the lady who went from house to house awarding families with the ‘cleanest house award.’ I hated myself or my house to be judged and so I resented it that time. I couldn’t care much and neither would my mother understand that.

A couple visited me a while ago along with their teenage daughter who was seething with anger. I noticed their uneasy faces as I asked them to sit in my counselling hall. I sensed the beginning of a highly energised fighting bout, so I asked them to chose separate corners of my working place. After presenting the problem, the mother asked a very common question: "Is this normal?." The majority of people I see in counselling situations often feel that they are the only ones struggling with these issues. It is reassuring when I tell them, "You are not the first ones to struggle with this conflict". Tears flowed down the cheek of their daughter. Broken and ashamed of her life at just 19, she shared openly of her troubles. The poor grades, punishment, relationships were all part of her monthly routine. She had lost the innocence of childhood because of poor choices and even poorer parenting. I will never forget what she told me once near the end of her session "If they just cared about the little things", she said, looking away to avoid eye contact with me.

‘The little things’ are what matter. It was not a small, but a powerful statement.

We both realised through the course of therapy that her pain and problems did not start at the point they were now. Her parents had allowed the normal, more easily manageable, conflicts to slip through their fingers and remain unresolved. Very soon these seemingly minor problems turned into bigger, more painful issues.

That is why an effort to resolve these simple-looking conflicts is very important when it comes to parenting before they turn in to life-altering events.

Some of these simple-looking conflicts centre around:

You are not alone with the difficulties you might be facing at this very moment with your teenager. This list contains everyday struggles of living in a family. It shows the effort of a family to strive towards intimacy, acceptance, understanding and validation. It is within these conflicts that the game of parenting is won. It is when the parents lose the sight of the ordinary, every-day conflicts that families suffer the toughest consequences of parent and teenager friction.

Remember some of the best advice out for parents is from parents, especially from those parents who have travelled down the road of raising adolescents and survived. Hoping that parents accept part responsibility of the problems, here are a few pointers for them:

Loving your teenagers for their vulnerability is what they really want. When they spend more time with their friends than with their parents, they are likely to drift away once in a while. A strong and heeding teenager emerges when he/she has a strong family background with good family bonding as an anchor.