Back home

Good to be back home and now in the office. It?s been painted fresh and so it?s spic and span?loads to catch up with and had a longish meeting on saturday! It?s the best way to get back in the groove?hit it hard!

What?s hard hitting really is the Mumbai heat and I have decided to keep cool drinking buttermilk. The interesting thing is that buttermilk contrary to its name, contains no butter at all! Defining buttermilk, acharya Sushruta has written that it is a compound made of curd and water, subsequently churned so as to have the contained cream and butter completely skimmed off. Its typical composition is about 0.5 percent fat and 5.5 percent milk solids (proteins, minerals and vitamins). The rest 94.0 percent is water! A glass of buttermilk contains only 20 calories. Wow, to know this gives buttermilk more weightage as a health drink. According to traditional Indian wisdom, Ayurveda, one big glass of this creamy, tangy drink can fuel you for a day of hectic work. Before massive urbanisation and the arrival of aerated cold drinks in India, buttermilk used to be a favourite item served both as a speciality and as an addition to daily meals. Many Vedic hymns give its reference. One famous saying goes thus: what amrit is to the gods, buttermilk is to human beings.

So how about some different types of cooling chaas?

Beetroot Chaas

Chilled Watermelon Yogurt

Pudina Chaas

Keep cool

Sanjeev Kapoor.