Modak Conquest - A humble tribute

As a Mumbaikar for most part of my life, I have seen several pompous celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi. Many people choose to keep idols in their homes/colonies and drown them later in the sea, some travel far to visit temples without footwear and a few others break coconuts loudly near other people's feet :-) As a silicon valley engineer far from home, I thought that any tribute to the elephant god, should be both refined as well as humble ...

In Hindu mythology, lord Ganesha is called by several names. Two such names are Modakapriya (lover of sweet rice dumplings) and Sarvasiddhanta (Bestower of Skills). Putting these two together, I felt I had found the best way to offer my tribute - to hopefully learn the coveted skill of preparing kozhakattais or modaks and feed my roomies, after presenting one before the god's idol of course (the former are generally hungry and hunger knows no taste, the latter is known for tolerant silence). But, this is not an easy matter for a guy at all! The art and skill of preparing these rice dumplings is known to reside only deep within the bastions of the culinary secrets of select Indian women. Few men are even known to dare attempt this undertaking, let alone achieve success at them.

My first attempt lasted about an hour and a half (inclusive of cleaning vessels and preparations). The results lay here in pictorial form...

I will spare the gory details of the effort but jot down a few quick random lessons to self...

Lesson 1 - Do not be ashamed to ask: Sometimes this first step that seems so easy might be really hard. As long as you have your reasons, there ought to be nothing to be ashamed of in asking women for help. Many many thanks to my ever helpful Maharashtrian friend at Rayleigh for giving me guidance and sound advice regarding this matter.

Lesson 2 - Even old dogs can learn new tricks: The human brain is known to be an adaptive organ. It may have its imperfections that may seem to manifest more stubbornly with age, but with sustained interest, it can be taught just about anything. No worries if the few modaks don't come out well, chances are the next one will look better than the current unrecognizable blob.

Lesson 3 - Watch out for surface ruptures: Modaks contain a sweet stuffing in the core, which may boil in the cooker. If the covering isn't prepared adequately, the latent steam may choose to find the weakest point in the surface and tear apart the covering. The resultant mass may still possess taste, but may make the hands oily before touching the camera ;-)

Lesson 4 - Take pictures even at intermediate stages: This allows for shameless boasting even if the end product were to be a disaster.

Results...
My first attempt had 8 modaks (since 8 bits make up a byte)
1 resides before god as I type this... 7 have been consumed with content smiles!

Ganpathi Bappa Morya