How the Indian curry and flatbread found their way into Trinidadian comfort food. A short thread on this delicious journey. 1/n #travellingsOftheIndianCurry
On a regular hot and humid day on the streets of Port of Spain, it is not unusual to find the sight of people eating Trinidadian wraps in restaurants and cafes. 2/n
The wrap, which is a combination of flatbread, and the traditional Trinidadian curry, is a unique mix of culture and heritage, and for the people of the Caribbean islands, it is comfort food. 3/n
But did you know a chunk of the flavor, ingredients and the method of cooking the wrap comes from the Indian subcontinent.? 4/n
The story goes that after slavery was abolished in the 1830s, to compensate for the loss of the workers, empires started bringing in indentured servants mainly from the subcontinent. 5/n
Post 1845, there was a huge influx of Indian migrants who came to work on the sugarcane fields in the islands. With them came their distinctive cooking style and food items, the most famous being the tawa-made Indian flat bread, also known as roti. 6/n
Over the years the roti became quite a star in the Trinidadian kitchen and saw several iterations of its Indian version. The most popular of them are the Dhal puri and paratha. 7/n
The Trinidadian version of the paratha is known as the ‘bussup shut’, which in Trini sounds like “busted-up shirt,”. Unlike the traditional Indian paratha, this is broken into pieces, which is then used to scoop up the curry. 8/n
Making the Dhal puri, on the other hand, requires patience and know-how. It is cooked on a griddle, stuffed with ground split peas, and then wrapped around a curry. The wrap roti became quite popular in the 1940s for its convenience and is still being used. 9/n
The Trinidadian curry is a milder offshoot of the Indian curry, since the islands had access to fewer spices during its inception. Though mild in heat, it is superior in taste and aroma. 10/n
Today, in Trinidad, one can find many restaurants being run by descendants of Indian migrants, offering the Trinidadian versions of the Indian curry and roti. If you ever find yourself in Port of Spain or San Fernando, make sure you grab a bite of the Trinidadian wrap roti. 11/n
A day to reminisce about a peculiar sight of a different time, an Indian woman in Sari, flying an aircraft during the pre-independence era.
A thread on Sari, Aircraft, Besharmi and a trailblazing mother, Sarla Thakral. (1/n)
When Sarla was married to Prabhu Dutt Sharma and moved to Lahore, she was merely 16. It was a family with a rich heritage of aviation heroics. Captain Sharma himself was a decorated pilot who flew with Nehru for his first election tour circa 1937. (2/n)
Her father-in-law owned a company called Himalayan Airways that used to operate flights between Haridwar & Badrinath. It was mostly his enthusiasm that had his young daughter-in-law enrolled in a flying club in Lahore, for Rs. 30/hour. (3/n)
‘Beware the ides of march’ said the soothsayer on chancing upon Caesar. On this day, we recount how the Bard was adapted into Bengali and Julius Caesar’s demise was enacted with fervor and passion on the Bengali theatre stage through the ages. A thread (1/n)
The history of Bengali proscenium theatre is the history of colonial theatre and Shakespeare's plays were adapted into Bengali with great enthusiasm.
Over the years, Shakespeare became a symbol of resistance for the Bengali bhodrolok (2/n)
Translation of Shakespeare into the vernacular language first started with the great Michael Madhusudan Dutta (3/n)
On Albert Einstein’s birth anniversary, let's talk a little about a couple of towering figures of their time and their mutual admiration. Let’s talk about Einstein and Gandhi. (1/n)
In 1931 Gandhi, then a leading figure of India’s freedom movement had gone to London to attend the round table conference. Seeing the dhoti-clad man with his stick on the streets of Britain’s capital must have been some sight. (2/n)
Gandhi had admirers all over the place, one particularly being a well-known German scientist Albert Einstein who wrote a letter to him dated 27th September 1931. (3/n)
Story of the most precious and fascinating wedding dresses. A short thread. (1/n)
During World War II, fabric and silk were so expensive that a great number of women simply weren’t able to afford a decent wedding dress, and many of them had to improvise with materials before their big day. (2/n)
In many cases, their inventiveness went beyond expectations. A few of the to-be brides of young army pilots, who flew in dangerous missions to defeat Hitler in Europe, did something extraordinary and surreal to weave their wedding dresses. (3/n)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the pioneer of non-violent civil disobedience movement remained an uncharted figure worldwide until in 1930, a brave American journalist came to India in search of a story that ultimately unveiled one of the most revered global figures of all time.🧵1/
The British Raj’s resistance & censorship on print media made sure that India’s struggle for independence would not see the light of day on the international stage until Webb Miller from the United Press came to interview Gandhi during his famous Dandi march. 2/
The news of Gandhi’s 240-mile march to oppose the rule imposed by the British Empire that prohibited Indians to make salt in their own homeland brought special attention to Miller, so he decided to fly down to India to unravel the black box. 3/
In a world where incessant hate propaganda such as love-jihad often hogs the spotlight, a thread on Savitribai Phule’s second letter to her husband about an intriguing love story and a vicious plot of honour-killing. (1/n)
In the era, when native women of colonial India rarely wrote letters, Savitribai Phule’s three letters to her husband Jyotirao Phule, have been preserved as precious pieces of literature. (2/n)
Going beyond the domestic orbit of mundane conversation, the letters stand out as chronicles of humanitarian conditions and social taboos of the colonial era. The remarkable letters reflect a sense of hope and liberation. (3/n)