ਸਾਰੇ ਵਰੇ ਤੋਂ ਠੰਢੇ ਦਿਨ ਨੂੰ

It's true what everyone is saying about the weather in Chicago; today, I finally had to break out my winter coat.

ਬਜ਼ਾਰ ਜਾਣਾ

We did get out of the house on Saturday, even if we didn't make it as far Hyde Park. Earlier in the week, I discovered an Indian cookbook monshu had picked up on sale at Borders and began leafing through it. This served to remind us how long it had been since we'd "done Devon". Because of my current fling with Panjabi, I'd been hankering after a visit to India Book House for more materials and Star Video for bhangra albums; monshu missed Bhabi's Kitchen and Patel Brothers. We had an Indian film (not technically Bollywood, although definitely in that style) coming for Saturday night. It all seemed to fit.

In light of the vicious wind-chills, I went to the Devon Avenue website to plot out the most compact route possible. Sadly, this left Bhabi's on the wrong side of Western, but Mysore Woodlands was smack in the middle of our two-block stretch, which is anything but cold comfort. I thought monshu had eaten there before, but perhaps not in light of his ignorance of the truly ginormous size of their dosai.

To work up an appetite, we spent almost an hour browsing the bookstore. I got the decent English-Panjabi/Panjabi-English dictionary I was after, although it's not without its frustrations. (Notably the fact that Panjabi translations on the English side can't necessarily be found in the Panjabi-English section and vice-versa; this is annoying to me because I always double check the definitions of unfamiliar words to prevent polysemy problems.)

I also--at long last--picked up Khushwant Singh's classic Train to Pakistan, about the horror of Partition in Punjab. Right near it, I found his translation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa's Umrao Jann Ada, the source for the nigh-eponymous film we saw at 600 North last year and picked it up for mollpeartree. Singh's more recent novel Delhi intrigued monshu, so he added it to the stack.

My search for Gurdas Mann CDs was a bit more frustrating, as I struck out twice before striking gold at Al Mansoor. There I found not only his Vilayatan but also his collaboration with Sukhsinder Shinda; I've been listening to almost nothing but on my iPod since. I also picked up Yaar Mera Pyar and one of his countless compilations, since none of the albums set me back more than $7. (Cutthroat pricing or outright piracy? Don't ask this gora pendoo. When Jamdoot comes to fetch me, what can I do but plead good faith?)

There wasn't a bad mouthful at lunch, but what thrilled us the most were, respectively, the lime pickle and the coconut chutney, so we kept an eye peeled for these at Patel Brothers. Who knew they had their own line of chutneys and pickles? Neither their sweet or their spicy lime pickle can quite compare to Mysore Woodlands', but they are well worth picking up all the same. We also learned an important lesson about examining the fresh chapattis they sell for chunks of green chili! Tasty, but not exactly the accompaniment to our beef biryani we had in mind.

Our final reward for a hard day of shopping was hot tea and habshi halwa at Sukhadia. First time I haven't seen it insanely crowded, though it was of course still busy enough. Unfortunately, the spicy banana crisps I picked up there for welcomerain's and spookyfruit's Superbowl party didn't exactly carry the day. (SF: What are they flavoured with? MF: Chili flakes...and I don't know what else, really. [munch munch] SF: Chili flakes with a background taste of ass.) But, thanks to the mysterious Pepto-pink lumps, for once the wrongest food on the table was not my contribution.

Watch those minimal pairs!

ਮੱਕੀ ਦੀ ਰੋਟੀ makkī dī roʈī "cornbread"
ਮੱਖੀ ਦੀ ਰੋਟੀ makkhī dī roʈī "housefly bread"

ਹਵਾਈ ਅੱਡਾ havāī aɖɖā "airport"
ਹਵਾਈ ਅੰਡਾ havāī aɳɖā "aerial egg"

The second pair is especially diabolical. If you look at the Panjabi Gurmukhī spelling, you'll see that the two compounds differ in a single diacritic: For "base", it's the bottom half of a tiny circle; for "egg", it's the top half.

Edit: Pedant that I am, I felt compelled to refine my sloppy usage here. Panjabi can be written in several scripts, including Shāhmukhī (Perso-Arabic) and Devanagari, in addition to the Gurmukhī which is official in the state of Punjab. I hope to do a future post on language variation, particularly divergences between the chief Pakistani and Indian varieties.