It was an essential part of middle-class life-style when we came to Pune fifty years ago. It appeared that its quality and the fat content were beyond comparison. Chitale Bandhu Sweets, a shop of the same people, was another Puneri hallmark and long queues of customers formed in front of the shop since early morning on festive days. The sweets were fine but expensive and the very idea of spending so much time for them was too much for us. My father always ridiculed this obsession with Chitale milk and sweets.
We abandoned the sweets but my mother stuck to Chitale milk. Boiling it, keeping aside the cream, making curds, making buttermilk from the special curds from accumulated cream, keeping aside butter and finally making ghee from accumulated butter - these time-consuming activities were a part and parcel of her kitchen work and she was very proud of them. I followed in her footsteps and did it all when she was not around which was rare.
With old age, my mother started finding it difficult to keep up and father advised her to give up Chitale milk. We could buy readymade butter and ghee, he suggested. Sacrilege, she thought and stuck to them. He gave up after repeated attempts to reduce her workload failed.
The quality of Chitale milk has worsened now. The milk is fatty but curds and buttermilk are full of casein. During the rainy season, milk quality goes down. Market grapevine says, they have scaled up and they use automatic machinery to get milk. Their marketing, helpline etc. remain poor.
In the month of May, Chitale milk which I was boiling on the gas stove suddenly turned sour and something snapped in me. I said goodbye!
For the next two and half months, I made trips to an Amul shop I found out nearby, every fortnight and bought 5 or 6 liters of Amul milk in plastic pouches at a time. I also bought cartons of milk. I found that Amul Gold was even more fatty than Chitale milk. It had few takers in our locality. Everyone preferred Amul Taaza, a low-fat variety. Amul shop had lots of milk-based products such as buttermilk, curds, ghee, flavored drinks, ice-cream etc. However, their supply was never assured.
We are used to getting milk delivered at home every day. This man said, Amul was not available with him and he had no substitute for Chitale milk. Amul has its own distribution and selling system and it does not cater to people like him. I had heard of milk delivery apps. I searched and found out that they served Amul Gold or cow's milk or expensive organic milk. Complaints about their delivery were legion.
I realized that the market for home delivery of milk was imperfect.
I contacted our delivery man and asked him to supply Katraj milk every day. Katraj is our local co-op milk collection and delivery dairy and its milk is highly popular among common people. It is not possible to make proper, thick curds or buttermilk from this milk but many brands of these are available in the market. I have started buying them now. I have always liked the taste of Katraj curds though.
Surprisingly, my mother has supported me in this transition. She does not talk of Chitale milk now and we are happy. There is less work in the kitchen and what my father wanted has come about fourteen years after he passed away.
3 comments:
We started off buying milk from Katraj Dairy. I remember the दूधकेंद्र at the entrance of our Society which used to come to life in the wee hours of the morning with a truck delivering a few crates of bottles. It was U's duty to go down and get 4 bottles every day, using a special carrier made of steel wires. The bottles used to be ice-cold and the fat used to float at the top, underneath the aluminium foil cover crimped on the bottle. A shop in the city used to buy this चांदी so Amma used to wash and keep it, to be sold / bartered once a month.
After Katraj Dairy, we used to get milk from Mr. Patel whose son Mahesh used to deliver it to us every day. Baba had named him JC after the greeting JC Krishna (Jay Shree Krishna) that they used to exchange every morning. Later we switched to Bajirao who used to deliver milk in the neighbourhood. Chitale Dairy was the last in this illustrious line of milk providers. Their innovation was the plastic pouch for packing milk, and unsurprisingly the pouch also used to be washed and recycled at the same shop in the city that used to buy the चांदी ...
I am reading your comment now!!
Thanks for taking the time to write. I laughed and laughed. Yes, those memories are coming back to me.
I remember how U dilly dallied one day and did not go to the booth in time. The truck left and she stood in the balcony, crying loudly. Baba had to go on his cycle to the next stop in Shevkar vasti. There was no repeat performance of this.
I was under the impression that we always bought Chitale milk at Amma's insistence. Katraj milk remains a favourite and it is indeed tastier than Chitale milk. Amul is making deep inroads in Maharashtra cities although their distribution arrangements are not strong.
I recently fired the fellow who supplied Katraj milk. He had become arrogant and would not do any adjustments for us. Now I go to the grocery shop nearby, right next to the society, once in 2 days and make do with Amul Taaza. The grocer does not stock Katraj milk, much to my regret.
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