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But without the inimitable Indian cookies and boisterous tea-kadai patrons, this success story of India’s many teas would remain incomplete. Tea kadai has been part of India’s culture for a long time (maybe a little over a century), or at least from when tea got incorporated into the country’s societal fabric during the British Raj. Fortunately, a handful of good-old tea kadais are still intact in many towns and villages of modern India, doling out piping hot Indian tea, coffee, and cookies by the hundreds every single day. And, I call these butter cookies the Indian cookies, for it’s made with chickpea flour that’s so indispensable when it comes to Indian cuisine and flavoured with cardamom, the queen of spices!

Omkareshwar is home to Shri Omkar Mandhata temple, situated on the Mandhata island, which encloses one of the 12 jyotirlingas. The four yugas are Sathya Yuga, Treta Yuga ( to which Lord Rama belonged), Dvapara Yuga( Lord Krishna took avatar in this yuga), and Kali Yuga. The main temple of Omkareswhar that is home to the Jyotirlinga is the Shri Omkar Mandhata temple, located on the Sanskrit OM shaped island. While one Jyotirlinga on the island of Mandhata came to be known as Omkareshwar, the other on the mainland of Omkareshwar town came to be known as Mamleshwar, respectively.

One of the most fascinating and unique traditional sweets from Andhra is the Pootharekulu or Putharekulu, also popularly known as Paper Sweet. It is part of Pithey’s preparation in Bengal, which usually is relished during winters alongside other desserts made of milk, semolina, maida, sugar, jaggery whereas in Bihar the same is a bit on a dry side with less syrup but again with the same rice flour/wheat flour. As I have a sweet tooth, whenever I travel to different places in India, I do like to try out different versions of this popular Indian Sweet Malpoa’. One of the traditional Indian sweets, especially of South India (Tamilnadu and Karnataka), the Seven Cups Barfi is prepared during Diwali or any other occasion that calls for jhatpat or an instant sweet treat.

Unlike the wide-spread Ganesh Chathurthi celebrations across Mumbai and Hyderabad, the Pillayar Chathurthi celebrations across Tamil Nadu are restricted to the four walls of our households, where a small clay idol of the Vinayagar is invoked and an elaborate pooja(religious ritual) is performed for a maximum of 3 days. The maintenance of the present Pillayarpatti temple premises, with structures, like the Rajagopuram built over and around the rock-cut temple, is the result of development and expansion around this cave temple over the years, especially under the patronage of the Nagarathar Chettiars. What was established as a rock-cut temple by the Pandya dynasty, transformed into a beautiful temple complex with a gopuram and a vimana based around Dravidian architecture along with a small temple tank under the Pallavas, and later expanded under the patronage of the Nagarathar Chettiars until now. Unlike other temples, the Ganesh Chaturthi or Vinayagar Chathurthi celebrations at the Pillayarpatti Karpaga Vinayagar Kovil extend 10 days with elaborate religious rituals and processions.