So it is going to be ‘YAKHNI’ this time.

‘Yes, surely and definitely, though I find its preparation a bit expensive due to the rising prices of fuel affecting the eatables’

Well, I am really looking forward to this day’

We were talking my friend and I, about the coming Eid, our Holy Festival after the Month of Ramazan, the fasting month of Islam.

‘Yakhni’ is the easiest and tastiest of all, at least I find it so’

‘Mom , why dont you serve it as soup this time?’ my son lounging on the sofa cum bed nearby, trying to sleep away the fast, had his cusinary bud towards us . Well, it can be taken as soup, why not, it can be thick as well as thin in the gravy.

Okay Mom make it like you always do and tell us some new story this year, maybe a fictitious one’ my son was smiling because he knew his writer Mom had had very little success with stories though more fame had come as a poetess.

Let me in, on the recipe and preparation, then, my friend was more than eager now.

My brother in law had sent me a book on Kashmiri Cooking’ by Neerja Mattoo and I had kept it close to my heart and kitchen. I opened the page on ‘Yakhni’

Lets see now, it says ‘Mutton’ in Yoghurt Gravy’

Mutton in Yoghurt Gravy

Ingredients

• 1 kg mutton you can buy ribs, I mean lambs ribs-or other fatty mutton cut into medium size pieces
• 4 cups yoghurt
• 60 ml oil
• 2 tsp ginger powder
• 4 cloves
• 2 black cardamom
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Garam Masala AH
• Hot spices

Preparation

Boil with cloves ginger cardamom salt powder and make the meat tender.Pour whisked youghurt over the meat stirring all the time , simmer till it comes to the boil. Make it into a smooth thin custard like consistency…

I was reading from the book, when suddenly I realised the strange silence, I looked up to find my friends perplexed face… well?

Well, I would prefer to see you actually make it then I would know how to do it myself.

Oh well, then lets wait till the day of festivity is near shall we?

I had a vision of the green gardens of my city , the famous Chinaar Bagh, and the Dal Lake with the houseboats, and the song ‘BHUM ro BHUm ro shaam rang Bhum ro’ The small drum called ‘Duff’ and the stringed instrument called ‘Sarod’ being strummed far away in the hills and valley.

Oh my Kashmir , would I ever go to see you in my life time? Would you ever be free?

The news on the TV showed fresh protests and the leader Yaseen malik injured in the scuffle with the Indian Police.

Freedom democracy where are you now.

Greeks Roman Countrymen?