Curried away

The town of Mitcham does not really exist: it is simply the agreed, arbitrary designation for a particular section of the continuum of London’s outer suburbia.  Apart from one fairly anonymous Grade I listed Georgian building, now hedged in by a swathe of the by-pass and a parade of newsagents, hairdressers and car showrooms, it has nothing to entice the visitor or gratify the inhabitant.

I knew it only as a place on the way to other parts of that Surrey sprawl.  For years I drove through it, never stopping, never really looking.  But one landmark always caught my eye.  Perhaps this was due to its position: on a corner along a stretch of road that was invariably congested.  Sitting in the traffic I had plenty of time to contemplate that building.

It was called “Benares”, and was a simple curry house.  Beyond that I know nothing.  Except that as I sat there each morning, the word “Benares” would be stamped once more upon my mind.  As it did so, it would translate across into “Varanasi” – the Indian name for the city of which “Benares” is the typically mangled English approximation, calling up to my mind’s eye huge, exotic vistas.
So when some time later I was in India, planning my itinerary, and my eye happened to alight on that name on the map, my heart leapt, and those same visions began insidiously to work their spell.  And I went to Varanasi.

I went to Varanasi, and found myself in a city of exhausting proportions, a city which seemed to repeat itself endlessly, with market following scented market, rows of poor shops selling the same permutations of goods as a hundred or perhaps a thousand others.  I found myself in muddy backstreets, dark even at noon so narrow were they, confronted and trapped there by the slow, stupid bulk of a roaming cow.

And above all I found myself in a boat on the Ganges at dawn, mist still hovering over its turbid waters.  Behind me were huge sandy plains which, when the river rose, turned into a sheet of motionless shimmering, tens of miles wide.  In front of me was the city.  It was high above the waves now, but ominous markings fifty or more feet up the sides of the bank indicated the almost ungraspable rising of the Ganges in flood.

At the bottom of those banks were the temples and the ghats, the platforms and steps down to the river where pilgrims came to bathe – and were bathing now, even in that chill air – the men dressed in dhotis, the women still demurely robed in by-now wet and clinging saris.  At one or two positions along the river there were the burning ghats.  Here bodies were brought to be cremated, and from my riverside seat I now found myself gazing at the lurid orange flames licking around charred but half-recognisable shapes, with an all-too human leg emerging from one side.

I will always remember Varanasi and these image, which have now superseded the inchoate fantasies conjured up by the “Benares”.  And I will always remember Varanasi for another reason: it was there that I was struck down with the worst food poisoning I have ever had.

(18.1.92)

See also Moody's Black Notebook Travels - 1988 India: Delhi, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Varanasi

Index

A week in Gourmandy

One of the pleasures of travel is the sampling of local cuisine.  Even the simplest of fare is imbued with subtle local characteristics which raise it far above its nominal station.  So the mind retains forever the salty sensation of fresh oysters in Bayeux, the baked barracuda in the Gambia, the freshly-slaughtered lobster in Loggos, the tuna fish bap in the canteen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  In their savours and smells they become neat parcels of memory: just add water and bring to the boil and your various vacations rise up before you.

But it is by no means necessary to travel to distant climes to sample these culinary delights.  An interesting indication of the level of yuppification of London is the number of restaurants which have sprung up in recent years.  In this, of course, London is merely aping New York, a city where rich hedonistic professionals seem to live to eat rather than eat to live. When I first moved to Abbeville Road, there were two restaurants.  Today there are five, with a sixth opening in two days.

Normally you restrain yourself.  However much eating may degenerate into excess, it is important to ration the experience itself.  In the last week I have broken this cardinal rule, though not always through my own greed.

Take last Monday and Tuesday, for example.  At lunchtime on both days, I had business lunches; in the evening, social engagements.  On Monday I was regaled with stockbroker’s fare.  To be precise, I was entertained by a pair of analysts in their modest but acceptable directors’ dining room.  After aperitifs, we went straight into the Beef Olive, followed simply by cheese and mints.  In contrast, Monday evening was a get-together chez Ahmed’s, with a fine hotchpotch of some ten or twelve dishes, not forgetting nans, raitas, parathas and dals.

Tuesday lunchtime was more directors’ dining rooms, this time on home ground.  We began with smoked salmon, proceeded to chicken in a rich sauce, and finished with lethal profiteroles.  Tuesday evening was American, with a fine clam chowder, then a pork kebab, rounded off with – but already the gourmand’s curse has struck: I cannot for the life of me remember what I did round it off with.

Friday lunchtime is easier to recall, because quite idiosyncratic – The Bombay Brasserie, reputed to be the best Indian in the land.  And the buffet-style food, placed by ourselves on quite the largest plates I have ever eaten off, was equally memorable, if not nameable.

And from there we begin the long haul of the Bank Holiday weekend.  That Friday it was the Metro, the first but not the last of the Clapham wine bars.  Sunday was Just Williams for the evening – just another wine bar.  Monday saw us at the fine new Pizza Express Clapham Junction for lunch, and in an atmospheric hamburger emporium opposite the ABC in Fulham Road in the evening.  But now the gourmand’s curse has done its worst: in the maelstrom of overeating out, not only can I not remember the details of the food, but even the name of the venue has gone.  Voyages in the land of Gourmandy, if too frequent, lead to the River Lethe.

(6.5.86)

Index