When I started working on my project about documenting ancient, traditional as well as lost recipes from Sindhi cuisine, a few years ago, the biggest challenge I faced was the lack of accessible information about the same. The limited documents that I could access, were in Arabic Sindhi, a script that I never could learn, despite of trying umpteen number of times, since my childhood. I felt stuck up. So the only way to move forward was to learn the Arabic script and to make sure that I don’t give up this time, I took up a challenge; The AlifBe…
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The Dairy products could be divided in many types, for example, heat desiccated (khoya), heat and acid coagulated (paneer, cheese), clarified butter (ghee), frozen (Ice cream), frozen concentrated milk (Kulfi variant) and condensed or concentrated products like Rabdi, Basundi etc. In the spotlight today is the Rabri or Rabdi or as many Sindhis call it, Reb^di! Rabri is a concentrated, sweetened whole fat milk and is considered to be of high nutritive value. It is a traditional preparation and its variations are mentioned in ancient food manuscripts, in food related accounts from 16th century and even in popular Mangal Kavyas…
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In my first post of AlifBe series I have mentioned that the 52 letters of Sindhi Alphabet, known as AlifBe or Alaph Ambhu, could be divided into sixteen basic shape groups. So far I have covered 17 ( Have skipped one alphabet as it is not used for words of Sindhi origin). Sharing a list of all that are covered so far! A short recap: 1st Shape Group: ا (अ/A) is the only alphabet in first shape group! ا as in ‘Attack’ or ا as in Atte Ja Ladoon The following 9 alphabets come under the second basic shape group characterised…
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Today (13th April 2021) is Cheti Chand and we, the Sindhis, celebrate it as our New year, with great enthusiasm. Why do Sindhis Celebrate Cheti Chand? The legend says that people in Sindh (Now in Pakistan) were tortured by an arrogant ruler named Mirikshah who tried to force Hindu Sindhis to accept Islam. Sindhis being followers of Varun Devta, Lord of Waters, gathered on the banks of holy Sindhu (Indus) River and prayed for some miracle to save them. After fasting and praying for many days there was an akashvani that the Lord Vishnu will soon take birth in an…
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#Alif Be of Sindhi Food~2 The second alphabet of Arabic Sindhi is ب as B in Baby!As mentioned in the previous post, the Sindhi alphabet is divisible into 16 basic shape groups. In the first shape group we have just one alphabet ا i.e ‘A’! In the second shape group there are 9 alphabets with similar basic shapes, followed by two more alphabets that are similar to some extent. And yet each alphabet is unique because of the position and number of dot/s in each alphabet. So the 1st alphabet of this group, which is the second alphabet of Alifbe…


