PAAYASAM, Coconut and Coffee

Paayasa is a popular sweet dish of South India.  Actually, Paayasam is a family of sweet dishes with dozens of variants.  Usually made of Jaggery or Gud as a main ingredient and other components thrown in, it is a must dish in festivals and functions.  Another popular dish, Kheer, is also a member of this family.  The basic taste also varies in preparations in different states and regions.  Coastal Karnataka has its own popular varieties with Green gram or its Dal as one of the components.   They also have payasam dishes with jack fruit, mango and sweet potatoes.  Kerala has its own varieties of payasam and palpayasam of Guruvayooru is quite famous and very tasty.  So also with Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.  With a literally rich addition of coconut, cashew nuts, badam and dry grapes,  Payasam is a big hit with children and elders alike.

When we were kids we were taught two customs or practice with payasams.   First one is that one should never say "No" to payasam when it is being served.  At least a small quantity should be accepted.  Second is one's plate should never be lifted or cleaned with  the hand after eating payasam in a plate.  The hand should at least be washed before cleaning the plates.  I suspect this was a ploy to prevent guests from cleaning their own plates.   By the time the guest washes his or her hand and returns, someone from the host's household would have taken away the used palates for washing.  Many times someone would say he does not want payasam because he or she is full and there is no place for next helping.  Then the eldest person or the one serving payasam would remind us of the Coconut bag and rava or soji (also called semolina in the west).   When a Gunny bag is filled with coconut and there is no place for adding a single coconut, still several Kilograms or pounds of semolina can be easily added in the bag.   Similarly, the stomach may be totally full, but it will still find some place for the liquid or semi-liquid payasam!   It was probably one way of exhausting all payasam prepared for the day.  In the days of no refrigerators, payasam would get stale quickly and any argument for full usage when it is good for consumption was just and fine.

The example of  gunny bag filled with coconuts and adding semolina or rava in it was also quoted in several other contexts, say for example making place for one more person in a crowed bus or train compartment.   Or scheduling one more visit in a crowed program.

A friend sent me a story by e-mail nearly five years ago.   It is a popular story and is still making rounds. It is of the Mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.  It says that when things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee:

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.  He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.  The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.  Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents.  Take time to get medical checkups.  Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18.  There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter.  Set your priorities.  The rest is just sand." 

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.   The Professor smiled.  "I am glad you asked.   It just goes to show you that no matter what your life may seem, there's always room  for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend".

Whether it is the "Full stomach and a small helping of Payasam" or "Gunny bag filled with coconut and semolina" or "Mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee", the message is same. There is always time for a friend, however much busy you may be otherwise. 

Story of WALL DRUG

Some ten years ago we visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.  There was an advertisement  board near Taj Mahal which read:  – "It is only 10,728 miles to WALL DRUG".   We wondered what it was and why was somebody advertising to a place over 10000 miles away!  We never imagined that we would travel that long and actually eat ice cream in Wall Drug one day.

During our visit to USA in 2005 we were traveling from Minneapolis to Rapid City, South Dakota.   Since we left Chamberlain in the morning, we could see boards displayed along the road advertising "Coffee for five cents – visit Wall Drug".  The boards could be seen for over one hundred miles and made curious reading. Who would advertise a cup of coffee being sold at five cents for as far as over a hundred miles?    We realized the truth after taking an exit on highway I-90 and driving for two blocks.  The advertisements were put up by the Wall Drug store. The story of  WALL DRUG makes very interesting reading.  It is the ultimate example of advertising and how far entrepreneurship can go.

In the year 1931, Wall was a small town in the South Dakota region with a population of only 326 people and all of them were flat and broke busted due to the great depression and drought.  Ted Hustead moved into the town from Philips in Nebraska and purchased a drug shop in the town.  Son of a doctor and a pharmacy degree holder, he had his wife Dorothy and four year old son Bill with him.  When he moved into Wall, his well wishers warned him about moving to a "place which is in the middle of nowhere" and no chances for survival.  Having started his business with his three thousand dollars, he found that business was next to nothing and set up a time limit of 5 years to move out if the trend continued.  The situation remained the same after four years.  In the fifth year, one summer afternoon his wife went to take a nap as there were no customers in the shop.  She returned after a few minutes and told Ted that she could not sleep due to heavy traffic on the nearby highway 16.  She had a suggestion – somebody traveling in the hot summer desert needs water, ice cold water.  If only they could let them know that ice cold water is one and a half blocks away……

She had also prepared a board reading "Get a soda….. Get a root beer…… turn next corner….. Just as near….. to highway 16 and 14….. Free ice Water …..WALL DRUG".   Ted liked the idea and with the help of a hired boy he prepared many such boards during the next week.  He then went with the boy and put up the boards on either side of the road and returned to the shop.  Even before he returned to the shop there were visitors asking for ice water.  After receiving ice water they thanked him and went.  Some of them wanted ice water to be given in their cans for use on the way.  One of the visitors asked him to sell some ice cream also.  That is how it started and the Wall Drug sales soared day after day.

The shop went on distributing such boards advertising its existence.  A wall poster was put up in the London underground subway station – in the "Tube" as it is called.  The board said  "Visit Wall Drug …. Only 5,160 miles away"!   A representative of BBC interviewed Ted Housted and many British tourists actually visited his shop when they traveled to the United States.  Boards in English were put in Paris.  Someone commented as to why English boards were put up in Paris!  Someone else replied that if the French could not read the board they would ask some one else who knows English to read it to them!  Boards were also put up in transit stations in far away Kenya in Africa.  Even today Wall Drug gives away 14,000 small posters and 8,000 big posters to the visitors to put up the boards wherever they want and it spends over 300,000 dollars every year  on advertisement even now.

The shop has been expanded from time to time and today is spread over 76,000 square feet of Western Wonderland ad resembles a wild west town.  The shops today have a collection of western art, over 1,400 historical photographs, beautiful black walnut peeled dining rooms, native American artifacts, animated attractions, a six foot rabbit and giant jack-pole.  Abundant shopping opportunities bring 20,000 visitors every day to Wall Drug and annual sales exceeds 10 million US dollars.  The shop is located 50 miles to the west of Rapid city and nearly 75% of the traffic on I-90 highway turns to Wall Drug.  A small drug store in a semi arid desert town has been converted to a tourist spot and shopping mall.

Started by Dorothy and Ted Hustead in 1931, their son Bill joined them in 1951.  Ted's grandsons Rick and Ted Jr joined the business in 1981 and 1988 respectively.  Dorothy died in 1994 and Ted himself died at age 96 in 1999.  The business is carried on by their daughter-in-law and grandsons.  We could not violate the unwritten rule on I-90 highway and went to Wall Drug. It was very hot on the summer afternoon. We visited the different areas of the shops and had ice-cream as most of the visitors do.   Dorothy and Ted Hustead were no MBAs, but made us go all the way to wall drug. 

The above picture is taken from the wall drug website.   You may visit   http://www.walldrug.com  for further details, if you are anywhere in South Dakota to visit the place, relish the ice cream and enjoy many other rare collection of photos and artifacts in Wall Drug.

Agatha Christie's Black Coffee

George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright and one of the founders of London School of Economics, once sent two complimentary tickets for the first show of his stage play to Winston Churchill. Shaw was known to be very bitter and sarcastic in his criticism and though many prominent personalities admired him, they also disliked him. A note attached to the tickets said, "Please bring along a friend, if you have one". Winston Churchill returned the tickets with a note "Unable to attend the first show due to other engagements. But I will definitely come to the second show, if there is one".

It was certainly not for the play "The Mousetrap". The Mousetrap, written by Agatha Christie opened at the  Ambassador Theater in West Street, Near Charing Cross Road in London on 25th November 1952, before many of us were born, and is still running! It ran till its 21st anniversary in 1973 at this theater and, due to higher demand for tickets, moved to the bigger next door St. Martins Theater thereafter. A visitor to London can see the play even now by buying a ticket for 45 to 60 Pounds. The play has been staged over an astounding  24,000 times and still attracts houseful shows. Three generation of actors have acted in the play and David Raven holds the Guinness world record for appearing in 4575 shows as Major Metcalf and  earned the title of  "Most Durable Actor".  

Agatha Christie, who lived between 1890-1976 wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections besides stage plays. She also wrote lesser known romances under the name Mary Westmacott.  Her novels have been translated to over 100 languages and claim over a billion readers all over the world. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, two characters created by her have been very popular with crime story readers. Her stories always ring with authenticity as she has used the familiar surroundings and places she actually visited in her life time, as a setting for her books and plays. Many of her novels have been enacted on stage as well as made into movies. Some of the stories like "Death on the Nile", "Murder on the Orient Express" and "4.50 From Paddington" have been made into movies many times over. 

When our host informed us that the play "Black coffee" was being enacted by the neighborhood Newtown Arts Company during this week and we can see if we are interested, we jumped at the offer. The offer was made at 6 PM for a show to start at 8 PM.  Tickets were available and booked over phone. When the actual place of the show was located on Google, it turned out that the place was not so neighborly and 60 miles away.  Just for orientation, it is like traveling from Mandya to Bangalore. After an early supper we stated at 6.45 PM and our journey itself was a suspense adventure, considering the evening traffic. Theater officials are very strict here and close the doors of the hall two minutes before the start of the show. We had only an hour to travel, find a parking place and go over to the theater for collecting the tickets. When delayed for catching a flight or train we hope that the plane or train is also late. Here there was no such hope. When we parked the car it was exactly 8 PM and we had no hopes of getting in. The theater manager realized that we had traveled far and made us an offer. He would allow us inside but we will not get the original seats allotted to us, but the nearest to aisle so that other guests were not disturbed. We accepted the offer and in the bargain got probably better seats. Total seating capacity of the theater was about 300 and well maintained. The play had just begun and probably only three minutes were lost. Only the first three characters had entered the stage.

"Black Coffee" is the first play written by Agatha Christie and produced initially in 1930. This first piece  launched a successful second career for her as a playwright.  Hercule Poirot and his friend Arthur Hastings are summoned to visit a famous physicist, Sir Claud Amory, but they discover on their arrival that he has been murdered. The plot revolves around a stolen formula for manufacture of explosives, with Poirot deducing which of Sir Claud's house guests/family members is the killer.  The action unfolds in the library of Sir Claude Amory's estate at Abbot's Cleve, about twenty-five miles from London, less than half the distance we traveled to see the show. 

I came to know some interesting facts about Agatha Christie at the theater :

• She worked as a Nurse during the First World War at a hospital in her home town. She liked the profession and called it one of the most rewarding professions that anyone can follow".  The job influenced   her much and many of the murders in her books and plays, including "Black Coffee", are carried out with poison.
• In 1930 she wrote in her diary that "Poirot was insufferable and an egocentric creep", about a character created by herself.
• She wrote her autobiography and it was published after her death because Christie told the Publishers, "If anybody writes about my life in future, I'd rather they got the facts right!"
• Her tombstone reads: "Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas. Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please".   

The show lasted for two and a half hours and was well acted and conveyed the heart of the plot in clear terms. The trade mark mustache of Hercule Poirot was there and we thoroughly enjoyed the show. The artistes and the Director received standing ovation at the conclusion of the play.

"Mousetrap" did not get  fit into our calendar.  We at least got Black Coffee!