How to get groceries delivered in 10 minutes or less

1. Get to know your local grocers.
In most Indian cities, there’s at least two mom-and-pop kind of kirana stores within a 10-minute walk away. I don’t necessarily mean your deepest-fears-and-guiltiest-pleasures kind of get to know (though that’s okay); I mean, chat, spend a few pleasant moments, ask how they’re doing, ask after their families. Basically, do not treat them like a transaction.

2. This means, of course, that you must physically visit these shops.
Yes, even if you are a Busy, Important Person. A 20-minute walk is good for you. (Masked, natch.) Plus a little weight-training on the way back. (If you’d rather not carry it all back, most of these places will send a lad with a cycle after you.) This takes care of most of your regular groceries needs.

3. You have their phone numbers now. And even if you’re reasonably organised, you’ll sometimes use up some things a bit faster between grocery runs. But you will know you’re running out of rice a couple of days before you actually do. Call them. They will deliver. Mostly fairly quickly, unless you’re in a very congested area, certainly before the rice runs out.

4. But if you’re like my level organised — and I am to planning what certain governments are to, well, Planning — you will forget something sometime and need it quickly. Or like maybe you have unexpected guests — hahahahah remember guests? sob — or the people you share your home express cravings for out-of-syllabus items. Call your friend, the grocer.
At 9:45 p.m, I boiled milk. It split. I had no more milk. My corner store had closed for the night. I called my kirana shop, a bigger place, which is 10 minutes’ walk away and which usually begins shutting around 9:30. Explained I needed milk. After a cursory ‘anything else’ kind of query — but with not a trace of insistence on a minimum order size — the shop-keeper put the phone down, and five minutes later, a lad who had cycled here rang my doorbell bearing 1 (one) 500 ml milk packet and wearing a smile peeping out from the sides of his mask.

I should say that this is not unusual. And no, I’m not one of those gregarious life-of-the-party types who can — gasp — just talk to anyone. Also, I’m not one of those people who has lived in one place all my life and now on the way to becoming a venerable local landmark. I’ve lived in five cities, 12 houses. In the last 25-odd years, my family lived in several nearby neighbourhoods and we got to know all the local shop people on at least a smile-and-nod-happy-diwali kind of basis. (That’s me, with my poor memory for names; Mum and Dad knew them by their names, and often knew their family members’ names as well.) When I pass through those areas now, I often stop by and say hello. They remember me. They remember my folks. I always get a smile.

Support local businesses, folks. If for nothing else, just because it makes life nicer.

Table Talk with Ananya Kabir & Ari Gautier

Table Talk with Ananya Kabir and Ari Gautier
Date: 22 August, 2021
Time: 21:00 IST

Ananya is an academic and researcher, and Ari is a writer and poet. Together, they founded and run Le thinnai Kreyol (on Facebook, YouTube, Medium, and Instagram), which has been discussing and showcasing various aspects of creole cultures

We’ll talk about creole cultures all over the world — and of course specifically in India — and the cuisines and foods that they have birthed, but we’re very likely to talk about lots else. (If you have attended Table Talk sessions before, you know that tangents and digressions from the alibi topic are a feature, not a bug.)

Giving back

Table Talk will stay free to attend and free to listen to or watch later, for as long as I can afford to keep it that way. But we would like to use our privilege to help others, so we’re asking our guests to choose a cause. Ananya and Ari have chosen Unicef’s Afghan appeal, “as I’m sure we all agree that there’s no one on this earth more needy of protection than vulnerable children.” If you would like to say thank you to Ananya and Ari for the session, please donate what you can at Unicef‘s campaign.

Attending

You will need to go to the Zoom link and register with a valid email address, after which you will get the link to join the event.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to:
- this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ttandfps
- and / or this Telegram Channel: https://t.me/TTandFPS

Table Talk with Nilanjana Roy

Table Talk with Nilanjana Roy
Date: 8 August, 2021
Time: 21:00 IST

Nilanjana is an author, critic, columnist, and editor. In A Matter of Taste (2004) an anthology of writing on food and its place in our lives, she collects some of the most significant Indian voices over the last century. She also did time in journalism and publishing, and for several years wrote the popular blog Kitabkhana. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Some two decades ago, she became one of my closest friends, and she and her partner and their cats have frequently been my home away from home in Delhi, where have I spent many happy hours in their bookshelves, pausing only to attempt to eat them out of said house and home or be taken out and fed.

We’ll talk about the intersection of books and food, yes, but being old buddies, we’re very likely to talk about lots else. (If you have attended Table Talk sessions before, you know that tangents and digressions from the alibi topic are a feature, not a bug.)

Giving back

Table Talk will stay free to attend and free to listen to or watch later, for as long as I can afford to keep it that way. But we would like to use our privilege to help others, so we’re asking our guests to choose a cause. Nilanjana has chosen  Goonj, especially for their work on Covid-19 relief. Many of you would have heard of Goonj as the organisation that collects used clothes, bed linen and the like, but they are so much more. If you would like to say thank you to Nilanjana for the session, please donate what you can at their donation page.

Attending

You will need to go to the Zoom link and register with a valid email address, after which you will get the link to join the event.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to:
- this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ttandfps
- and / or this Telegram Channel: https://t.me/TTandFPS

Table Talk with Krish Ashok

 

Table Talk with Krish Ashok
Date: Jul 25, 2021
Time: 21:00 IST

I've known Ashok as a popular personality on Twitter, and as a musician, regularly putting out his compositions (he plays multiple instruments) for his followers. Along the way, I discovered he's also an artist, and last year we found out he is also an author (his book, Masala Lab, came out late last year, to popular acclaim). All this, mind you, while holding down a very demanding day job and cooking for his family.

We'll talk about these multiple facets of him, with an attempt every little while to stay on topic (I am easily sidetracked, and so, with Table Talk, I cannily call this a feature, not a bug) and chat about food and science and the book.  We'll chat for around a couple of hours, which includes time for questions from the audience.

You can buy Masala Lab here, and read Ashok's column at Mint here.

Giving back

Table Talk will stay free to attend and free to listen to or watch later, for as long as I can afford to keep it that way. But we would like to use our privilege to help others, so we’re asking our guests to choose a cause. Ashok has chosen Railway Children, a non-profit organisation under Section 8 of The Companies Act, which works to ‘create and enable sustainable changes in the lives of children living on the streets.’ If you would like to say thank you for this session, and if you can afford to, please donate at their donation page.

Attending

You will need to go to the Zoom link and register with a valid email address, after which you will get the link to join the event.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to:
- this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ttandfps
- and / or this Telegram Channel: https://t.me/TTandFPS

Poetry & me

Poetry & me is an online talk show, a web series, if you will. It is deep, thoughtful conversations with practising poets about their relationship with poetry, interspersed with readings from their work and time set aside for audience questions. These conversations will later be archived online as a free public resource.

This is part of a longer project I’ve been planning towards for years — life kept getting in the way — which seeks to create a large archive of poetry in India. I can do a substantial chunk of it now via Zoom, because generous friends who wish to remain anonymous paid for a Zoom webinar package, which lets me do these as events with audiences.

I plan to start this with poets writing in English, for no other reason that that it’s the only language I’m competent in. Once I have a body of work to show, I hope to raise some funds to bring in other people who can join me and conduct interviews in other Indian languages.

Poetry & me will not be on a fixed schedule (i.e., not a fixed day of the week or time of day) because the people I want to talk to have different time tables and schedules. If you’d like to attend the recordings, I’ll be posting updates on my social media (links alongside), and, easier for you, via this Google Group and this Telegram Channel. Please subscribe to one of both of them. These will be one-way, i.e., only I can post to them, and I will only post to let subscribers know when a session is happening — you’ll get at least a couple of days notice — and when recordings are available online.

Folks who have agreed to be interviewed (so far) include: Aditi Rao, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Aruni Kashyap, Ayesha Chatterjee, Bina Ellias, Jerry Pinto, Keki Daruwalla, Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury, Michael Creighton, Monica Mody, Mustansir Dalvi, Ranjit Hoskote, Rochelle D’silva, Rochelle Potkar, Sampurna Chattarji, Sharanya Manivannan, Shikha Malaviya, Srilata K, Suhit Kelkar, Vinita Agrawal.

How you can help

• Come to the shows, of course. 

• Bring friends. Help spread the word, if you can, of the show, of the recordings when they’re up.

• Tell me which poets you would like the series to cover. Across languages, but in India or with an India connection only (for now).

• If you, or folks you know, would like to support this effort financially, get in touch.

Table Talk with Vikram Doctor

Table Talk with Vikram Doctor
Date: Jul 11, 2021
Time: 20:00* IST

Vikram, vikdoc to many who know him on the very few online forums he inhabits (he has, over the years, firmly resisted any efforts to persuade him to get on to social media — I was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out he was on Instagram — is always Doccy for me.

We started our advertising careers together us trainees, he in client servicing, me in creative, in Lintas in the 90s. We shared laughs and music, books and woes, and many late nights in Express Towers before we went our different professional ways, and eventually out of advertising. We've kept in touch over the years, talking and meeting infrequently, but when we do, we are able to pick up the threads easily. As he put it once, "one of those semi-work friendships, when you can get close but don't really keep in touch after your workplaces diverge, and yet that basic connection isn't lost and you can always catch up every couple of years or so."

The world, of course, knows him as the food columnist with a cult following, the writer and podcaster who finds fascinating connections that help us understand our world and where it came from.

To steal another sentence from Doccy, it's time we had one of those once-in-two-years coffees.

We will chat mainly about the history of food writing, how to go about food research, stuff like that. You do know, of course, that when old friends meet and chat, the conversation can go all over the place. That's a feature, not a bug. :)

We'll chat for at least an hour, and have questions and discussion for 15 to 30 minutes, though I suspect we'll go on longer.

Giving back

Table Talk will stay free to attend and free to listen to or watch later, for as long as I can afford to keep it that way. But we would like to use our privilege to help others, so we’re asking our guests to choose a cause. Doc has chosen All Creatures Great and Small Sanctuary, which is a registered charitable trust. If you would like to say thank you for this session, and if you can afford to, please donate on their donation page, or via their campaign on Milaap.

Attending

You will need to go to the Zoom link and register with a valid email address, after which you will get the link to join the event.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to:
- this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/ttandfps
- and / or this Telegram Channel: https://t.me/TTandFPS

* If you've attended a Table Talk session before, please note the change in timing. This one will be at 8 p.m., not 9, since Sheru, the canine member of Doc's household, demands an early morning start to his day.

Table Talk with Kriti Monga

 

Kriti is a designer, artist, calligrapher, teacher, writer, and many other things. In her designer avatar, she has worked on restaurants; when she backpacks, she chronicles her travels with paintings in her journals. We will chat about how all these things intersect in her life, and she will show us some of her diaries.

Kriti, by the way, designed the logotype for Table Talk and the flyers, and also the logotype for the Simple recipes for complicated times group.

Table Talk is currently free to attend, but we’re asking all our guests to name covid-19-related fund-raisers they support, and asking attendees to make donations to these causes. Kriti has asked for support for TheWire.in. Please see this page for how you can do that. (The Wire is a non-profit under Indian laws. This means that The Wire's commercial income must remain under 20% of its total income, and donations are how they keep running.)

We’ll chat for at least an hour, and have questions and discussion for 15 to 30 minutes, though I suspect we’ll go on longer.

Register at this Zoom link with an email address linked to a Zoom account (signing up for Zoom is free); this is a security precaution. Registration is open up to the time of the event. After you register, you'll get a confirmation email with your meeting link and password.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to this Google Group
and / or this Telegram Channel.

Table Talk with Ranjini Rao

 

Ranjini is a teacher, columnist and author. She wrote the memoir Lessons From My Mother’s Kitchen and, with Ruchira Ramanujam, has written Mango Masala, Book Worms & Jelly Bellies, and History Dishtory, the last two for children. We’ll discuss the craft of writing, food, and writing about food, with some focus on writing for kids, and we’ll hear Ranjini reading from her books.

Table Talk is currently free to attend, but we’re asking all our guests to name covid-19-related fund-raisers they support, and asking attendees to make donations to these causes. Ronj has chosen Mercy Mission, a coalition of 25 NGOs working in Bangalore. Please go to their Milaap page to donate.

We’ll chat for at least an hour, and have questions and discussion for 15 to 30 minutes, though I suspect we’ll go on longer.

Register at this Zoom link with an email address linked to a Zoom account (signing up for Zoom is free); this is a security precaution. Registration is open up to the time of the event. After you register, you'll get a confirmation email with your meeting link and password.

To get notifications of new episodes and links to past episodes, please subscribe to this Google Group
and / or this Telegram Channel.

Table Talk with Kurush Dalal

Our guest for the fourth edition of Table Talk is Dr Kurush Dalal.

Kurush is an archaeologist and anthropologist, an educator, and an inheritor of a culinary legacy (his mother was a legendary caterer (and an archaeologist)). We’ll talk about all these facets of him, and hopefully remember — he’s an entertaining storyteller, so it’s easy to get distracted — our main topic: what the people of the subcontinent ate based on the evidence he and others have literally dug up.

We’ll chat for at least an hour, and have questions and discussion for 15 to 30 minutes, though I suspect we’ll go on longer.

Please join us?

May 30, 2021 21:00 IST.

Register here with an email address linked to a Zoom account (signing up for Zoom is free). This is a security precaution. Registration is open up to the time of the event. After you register, you'll get a confirmation email with your meeting link and password.

Table Talk with Saba Mahjoor

Our guest for the third edition of Table Talk is Saba Mahjoor.

Saba's stories of her phuphee have captivated the Simple recipes for complicated times group. In this Table Talk, we'll listen to a few of these tales live. We'll also chat: about recipes and learning to cook, about growing up in Kashmir and about feminism.

We'll chat for 45 minutes to an hour, and have questions and discussion for 15 to 30 minutes.

When: May 2, 2021 21:00 IST. Register here.