By Tara Narayan

DON’T me ask me how I found myself one more time at Sapna Sardesai’s “Kokum Curry” down town Panjim on Shivratri day (February 26) — to find this most memorable of sabudana khichdi! Instead of rice in her special Shivratri day meal platter she had sabudana khichdi, done superbly. It reminded me of sabudana khichdi done Maharashtrian-style, served with a little bowl of pure white drained curd – that’s sabudana khichdi combo on fast days in Maharashtra and Bombay.
In Mumbai of course one finds sabudhana khichdi in very many places in the suburbs and on a daily basis, not just fast days. Panshikar’s at Dadar veggie market near the railway station used to be an old favorite of mine. On a blue Monday by suburban electric train to Churchgate, I’d get off at Dadar and walk over to Panshikar’s to treat myself to a bowl full of warm boiled fresh groundnuts-cum-yam cubes mix piled high with crunchy potato slivers.
Sabudhana khichdi was a top favorite too for which many come for it; plus there were more freshly made item numbers like kanda or batat or plain savory pohe, kuttu (buckwheat) puri-shrikhand, potato bhaji simply done in ghee-jeera-green chili tempering, some more. Maybe foxnuts, otherwise called kamal kakdi phool or lotus seeds and flowers (also “makhana” so popular nowadays, everyone’s looking for them and the prices are hitting the sky).
Fast days most homes do sabudana khichdi as a popular lunch time meal or evening snack. Fast days are Monday (for Lord Shiva) or Tuesday (those who have an unlucky “manglik” in their horoscope), Friday (for the monkey god Hanuman’s blessings), Saturday too (if you have “shani” evil in your zodiac stars)! I have a manglik curse in my horoscope although I think I should have outgrown it by now.
A horoscope scholar once told me “manglik” curse is to do with the red planet Mars and I should wear red coral on my body for protection against evil. I really do not know whether I believe or not and this is about feasting on sabudana khichdi for a Shivratri lunch at Kokum Curry.
IN FACT at Kokum Curry I was tasting sabudana khichdi after many years. I hadn’t touched it ever since my friend Mohini Motwani (a much-loved LIC-employed friend of mine in Panjim) passed on. Being a dedicated Maharashtrian woman Mohini needed no excuse to make sabudana khichdi, much to her Sindhi musician hubby Jaichand’s disgust). And every time I turned up on junket holidays to Goa from the 1970s onwards and Mohini would make her sabudana khichdi seeing how much I loved her substance and style making it…Mohini and Jaichand were childless and my dear friends for years on end, both gone with the wind now.
Usually, I’d be in Goa on some of my birthdays (November 17) staying with the Motwanes, and Jaichand would take out his precious sarod to sing Saigal songs for me (the sarod makes the most golden sounding melodies, a difficult musical instrument and few may master it nowadays), in my nostalgic mind I can still hear Jaichand singing, “Asha ne khel rachayee…”
But for Mohini and Jaichand I may never have landed up settling in Goa later on; those days of old Mohini constantly urged me to invest in a home in Goa, I could have done it for a song then; but I didn’t listen to her and now I’m homeless in Goa! Life is full of such ironies.
It is a fact that we may remember a friend while eating some food! For me whenever I’m eating sabudana kichdi I remember Mohini making it for me…soaking the sabudana, removing it on a clean white cloth after they’ve swelled up enough. Then heating up groundnut oil, adding cumin seeds, chopped green chilies, the softened sabudana, then the stirring, adding in the peanut crumble somewhere midway, “the sabudana musn’t stick,” she would say, “every grain must be distinct and translucent.” When I returned to Bombay she would faithfully pack me a tiffin-box of sabudana kichdi for the bus or train journey back. Days there are when I wish Mohini and Jaichand were still around here for me in Goa. Sigh!
BUT to return to sabudana khichdi it’s really a potpourri dish made from soaked sago seeds – sabudana. These tiny white pearl like seeds soak in water and grow twice their size and soften up further upon cooking…they’re made either from tapioca (cassava) tuber, or some say even the sabudana palm pith. Sabudana are very versatile seeds and have somehow become a hot favorite for all fast days of the Hindu calendar, with homemakers turning out an array of things – irresistible sabudana khichdi (redolent of roasted cumin seeds, peanut choora, green chili, chopped coriander leaves), or shallow fried sabudana vada (fritters), and even a most velvety mildly sweet sabudana kheer but in coconut milk in Goa. At Kokum Curry it is called “mannganne” and features a mix of things including sabudana, absolutely divine fare.
This is to say they make a most agreeable sabudana kichdi and mannganne at Kokum Curry (for hostess Sapana Sardessai tries meticulously to keep her Saraswat Brahmin kitchen heritage recipes alive for discerning foodies who pine for their grandmother’s or mother’s food). When I’m in a foul mood I want to go to Kokum Curry to eat a platter meal, I feel I must treat myself to something worthwhile!
It’s worth fasting on one meal a day if one may eat a good sabudana khichdi; in Gujarat we combo sabudana khichdi with tart buttermilk to wash down afterwards, the buttermilk is seasoned with the piquant black salt “sanchar.” On fast days a Guju home menu would be a collective meal of “batata-pauva,” “batata-nu- shaak,” “samo-ni-khichdi” (samo being a little ivory white millet, best cooked in buttermilk) or the heavier “sabudana-ni-khichdi”… potatoes rule the roost mostly along with sweet potatoes, also yellow and purple yams — cooked, cubed and stirred into seasoned curd. The entire family including the men folk fast on ekadashi days, considered to be very pious days, and the one meal of the day could be as austere or as exotic as desired by the women of the household.
Onion and garlic are taboo of course along with a whole host of other things on all fast days, and to this day I don’t know why…must find out. Dairy products are permitted so you may feast on shrikhand, dudhpaak, all kinds of milky sweets. In Goa it is not dairy milk but coconut milk which rules, it’s only the north Indians who are crazy about dairy milk and its products — although dairy is contraindicated for those suffering from respiratory ailments.
A more pious stoic member of the family would insist on fasting on nothing but half-a-dozen elaichi bananas and a glass of “haldi dudh,” or a peanut ladoo. I had an aunt in Ahmedabad who fasted most rigorously and she was my strongest aunt, most indefatigable, loved her dearly! Gone with the wind. Before I start weeping in my cups for all those gone in 2024 let me switch subjects right now.
SOME TIME ago I was grumbling how difficult it is to find millet roti in local stores in Panaji. I am happy to tell you that at Delphino’s now you may find freshly made nachne chappati or phulka. And yes at Big Mishra Peda’s you may find these large jowar and bajra roti or “kori roti” (khakra or papad-style)…crunchy, they break up easily, I dare say they would soften up in any liquid. Dry millet roti, say Rs80 per packet of 15 pieces or so. Go for a the millet roti for they’re non-GMO and offer better protein values. The future of health is in millet foods.

SARAS 2025
WHICH reminds me at the SARAS mela which opened at the Kala Acadamy’s Sangam grounds by the Mandovi river front on March 7, there are the usual amazing range of stalls put up by the Self-Help Groups of Goa and other states Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra…first day evening I dropped for a quick look and came away with these ginger jaggery nuggets, a pack of millet flour to make dosa in a jiffy, some marvelous large peanuts not too salty, and Kerala-style khadi woven cotton lungi which can double for any use you want to put them to as per your imagination.

The SARAS fair is on till March 16, so if you’re in a mood to shop drop by, here’re all kinds of masala, pickles, papad, attire, sarees, amazing plants, cosmetic jewelry, and much more. A fleeting thought, what not to buy home! The world is always full of beautiful things to buy, buy, buy! If somebody doesn‘t buy who will get rich? Never mind that nowadays I’m actually through with shopping for anything and everything with zilch desire. Wish I never had to go shopping anywhere for anything! I’ll go one more time to SARAS to buy some tea masala and turmeric powder and maybe some of the green salt water mango pickle called chepnim.