MAIN NASHE MEIN HUN

MAIN NASHE MEIN HUN

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

22/XII/2023

It was yesterday while scrolling through my favourite videos, I came across my favourite Gazal on YouTube by Jagjit Singh, ‘Main Nashe Main Hun’. I actually am. We had gone to bake cakes at a local bakery. Since then, intoxication of a different kind is running deep inside every nerve and artery.

We reached the bakery complex which we had visited last year. Smells started going up the nostrils. The moment we stepped out of the car. They were familiar but different. Lugging our carton full of goodies needed for baking like flour, butter, cake fruits, essence etc needed some muscle power. To our surprise the workers there were making ‘Jaggery Toffees’.

The smell was so striking that one could eat a whole ‘disc’ right there. One worker informed us that the bakery had shifted a couple of months back. We did a ‘peechay mur daur ke chal’, carrying with us that lovely smell. ‘Nasha’ had started.

We located the bakery. The very familiar, decent, and soft-spoken workers welcomed us with a smile. There was an issue now. There were a couple of families already in line for their turn. The issue was that they had run out of moulds. The oven had a fixed capacity. Only once cakes got baked did they make way for new ones, we had to wait.

We were told to return the next morning. A little dejected, we lugged the ingredients back to the car. As we were about to return, “Sohail Bhai” came running. Aap a jao, kuch karte hain. That’s when the man who controls the baking started to pull out a set of cakes. We were lucky.

Moment the lid of the oven opened, the blast of the smell of fresh cakes hit our nostrils again. We closed our eyes and let those aromas hit our brains. Rightly so, it was a ‘main nashe mein hun’ moment and I wanted to stay immersed in the smells.

We had reached the bakery at 3pm & it was around 6 pm when our turn for beating the cakes came. Friends, the smells enchant you even while the cake mixture is mixed. My wife added a caveat, bhaiya, thora dough alag se rakhana, to mix the ‘rum soaked’ cake fruits. Rum brought a broad smile to all the workers there. Then there was a kind of hush as workers waited for the jars of fruits drowned in fauji rum would be opened.

The man who shoves the batter into the moulds had a jolly good time. He smelt the fruits and made a gesture of ‘excellent’. Given a choice he would have drained the extra liquid and enjoyed a peg or two. The bakery started smelling different. Those smells can only be experienced.

By 7 pm our cake mixture was churned, put into moulds and were ready to be fired in the oven. Sohail Bhai gave us two hours of baking time. During our conversation, I learnt that they all were up since 3 am. The products for their main bakery had to be prepared owing to the rush of people like us they were expecting today. We left the cakes with him with chits of our names sticking on top. Cakes sometimes get mixed up; we didn’t want that to happen, especially the one marked as NOEL-R. R stands for Rum.

Dot at 9 pm, Sohail Bhai rang up and said that the cakes were ready. There were more orders to bake and he wanted the molds for free, so if we could come and collect them, which we readily agreed to. The excitement to collect them is even more. What will be the texture of the cake and above all its taste?

Fresh, hot aromatic cakes were lined up. This time, the smell of rum was nicely camouflaged with other cakey smells. Sohail bhai did not let us handle fresh cakes which were nicely wrapped in newspapers. They are fragile and had to be handled with care, he said, lest they crumple. Once the cakes cooled only then they could be put in cartons. He instructed us to let all steam evaporate, once we reached home by spreading those cake bricks.

Our dining table is full and so are the slabs in the kitchen. The whole house smells of cake. I had breakfast in between them. What a joyous occasion it has been and what an aromatic extravaganza!

I want to remain intoxicated in those odours and aromas and keep singing “Main Nashe Mein Hun”. Won’t you like to smell fresh cakes, rather taste them? I wonder!!!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjRAws8ShJ0

JAI HIND