Moulding a ‘modak’ over memories of Ganesha

When I asked my mother about her memories of modak, she narrated a story so vivid that I felt like I was there—in a chawl in the central Mumbai neighbourhood of Dadar, watching the ladies of her family expertly turning out thin dumplings stuffed with jaggery and coconut, gossiping and arguing as they did.

These dramas seemed appropriate because Lord Ganesha, the pot-bellied, elephant-headed god dear to millions, was himself born amidst celestial theatrics. His favourite offering, seen on a carving as old as 600 CE, is closely intertwined with my family’s history.

In the chawl—tenements along a long balcony with communal bathrooms at their ends—my mother’s frail kaki or aunt kept ready a dough made of rice flour and grated more than 20 coconuts, when the women trooped in. It was a two-room tenement housing the couple, and their five children (later, even the eldest son’s privacy seeking wife, who caused a scandal when she moved out with her husband).

One aunt fought with her daughter-in-law, banging her own head on the floor before Ganesha, as the modaks rolled out. “Ata me marte (now I die),” my mother recalls the aunt wailing.

She remembers her 6ft-tall uncle, always selected to do the visarjan, the immersion of Ganesha, since he could walk out furthest into the sea. The children wailed when they could no longer see him. “Mama mela (uncle is dead),” they would weep.

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One year, the uncle told his father he really would drown himself during visarjan, unless he was allowed to marry the woman he met at the ration shop (he got his way). Another uncle insisted that he would marry the woman he met waiting in line at the chawl’s bathroom.

My mother’s memories of the annual modak production line date back to when she was 10 and the country was on the cusp of independence. The “senior ladies”, about 20 of them, oiled their palms and flattened the dough, like thin puris, teasing out seven petals, placing the stuffing of jaggery and coconut, closing it after shaping a shendi or tuft on top. A thick modak was summarily rejected.

I ruefully remembered that story when I attempted to make my own modaks recently. I had no luxury of rejecting any—they were nowhere as thin as she described them. Perhaps it was punishment for the sacrilege I was committing: stuffing modaks with kheema. As for the hand-shaped seven petals, I used a modak mould or press.

Our main welcome to Ganesha lasted a day this year. My mother is 88, and we no longer buy a clay idol. She uses the one permanently installed in her puja niche. When we were young, Ganesha stayed for five days. In the Delhi of the 1970s, where the festival was largely unknown, I recall my father driving around until he found a lake. One year, we used a bucket.

My brother and I fought over who would ring the bell while we sang the Sanskrit hymns, many of which I clearly recall. Twamameva mata cha pita twameva, twameva bandhu sakha twameva and so on. At the chawl, neighbours—many from other communities, such as Gujarati—joined the singing. Everyone who came for the evening darshan was offered pedas, prasad and coffee.

While we enjoyed the intimate quality of our family Ganesha, I must confess we did not look forward to the entirely vegetarian offerings of his time with us, even though we did like the panchamrut, the first prasad, a mix of yogurt, sugar, honey and mashed banana. It is the first offering to Ganesha, coming before the main offering of a thali of rice and dal, drizzled with ghee, two vegetables, a koshimbir or salad and more panchamrut.

My brother once persuaded my mother to change the stuffing of the modaks, after the festival, to kheema, which is why this year I persuaded her to try it again after our puja was done. We sat together and shaped the dough into modaks. It was slow, deliberate process, opening time for conversation and gossip.

Once the modaks were ready, the leftover dough was used to make what is called a rice bhakri in Maharashtra or an akki roti in Karnataka, and, yes, they are best eaten with kheema, meat or fish.

The inclination to be done with the vegetarian imperatives of the festival, I discovered, was not new. They may not have considered kheema modaks at the chawl in the 1940s, but my mother recalls her uncles rushing to the market after visarjan. Everyone, she said, returned eagerly with sarangi, large white pomfrets.

MAKING MODAKS
Serves 7-8

Ingredients
2 cups rice flour
2 cups water
Half tsp salt
1 tbsp oil in a bowl
Half kg cooked kheema. You can also use small prawns or the traditional jaggery and coconut stuffing

Method

Bring the water to a boil, add a tsp of oil. Gradually add the rice flour, stirring slowly, then rapidly as it thickens. When it acquires the consistency of a paste, remove and knead on a steel plate. Keep dipping your hands in water since it will be hot. Knead into a dough and set aside. Grease palms, remove golf-ball-sized dough and press gently until thin. You can either try to shape the modak by hand or use a modak mould. Lay the dough in the mould, place 2 tsp of the stuffing, close the dough and the mould, pressing gently upwards from the open bottom, so that the modak takes the shape of the mould. Open and steam in an idli steamer for 5 minutes. Eat hot.

Our Daily Bread is a column on easy, inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is the author of The Married Man’s Guide To Creative Cooking—And Other Dubious Adventures. He posts @samar11.

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