A Bowl of Pakhala
Come March, the people of Odisha have to start battling the high and dry heat of an early summer that kind of side steps over what is supposed to be “Basanta Rutu” or Spring season; a season supposed to buffer the summer and be mild, but which slyly gives the state a miss. Summer is all of a sudden upon us, before we have even packed away our winter clothes. We start feeling the departure of winter when the vegetables, fresh beet and carrots and cauliflowers and laukis and peas suddenly start looking dry and withered, then one day suddenly lose their taste. Then comes the loo, the dry wind that the river bed brings in during the mid-day, that is suffocating and all pervasive. Suddenly the swarms of mosquitoes disappear and you know that the temperature is hovering around the 40s mark. But, the real indicator, that Summer is here? The Pakhala . The dish whose images have started doing the rounds of social media in recent years, and so much so, apparently, a day has been dedicated to it!...