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Amar Rane's Star Recipes. Nothing unusual about the cookbook really, except that this one is not in English, Hindi or any other language....

Amar Rane8217;s Star Recipes. Nothing unusual about the cookbook really, except that this one is not in English, Hindi or any other language. This is a cookbook in Braille, so that the blind can now make other dishes besides the ones they already know.

Rane, the author of several cookbooks, has been visiting the Poona School and Home for the Blind for the past 10 years 8220;just to give them company.8221; His interaction with them revealed their likes and dislikes. Says he 8220;Seventy-five per cent of the visually impaired like spicy, pungent food. So during my visits, I started teaching them how to make simple things like chutneys.8221;

His once-a-week chutney sessions soon grew into a cookbook idea while commuting on a local train in Mumbai. 8220;I was travelling in the disabled compartment as he suffers from ankylosing spondilitis when I met this blind girl and we got talking. I asked her whether she made food at home and she said yes. She told me that she loved cooking and managed by using her sixth sense.

8220;I had a fair idea of the methods employed by them. But the talk got me really thinking. If cooking is such a passion with them, why not create a cookbook that will allow them to explore its joys?8221;

So Rane decided to adapt his two cookbooks, Amar Rane8217;s Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian Star Recipes and Fastfood Recipes to Braille. But this involved more than a mere translation into the Braille script, for cooking by the blind is as sighted people do it.

Says Rane, 8220;First of all, they cannot measure ingredients. So instead of putting it in grams or kilograms, I have spoken in terms of cups and spoons. Then they cannot see how fine their masalas are, so they have to feel it. When it comes to frying onions for gravies, I have converted the fry till golden brown8217; into minutes. With their special clock, they can easily follow these instructions.8221;

The Braille cookbooks will have all the recipes that are in his regular ones. 8220;Though I was told that most blind people do not possess refrigerators or ovens, I have still included recipes using these gadgets in the Braille cookbook. Even if they cannot make the stuff because they lack the gadgets, they should be informed about it. How else are they to fathom how to make a kulfi or ice-cream?8221;

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Rane shows them how to make baked dishes without using an oven. 8220;All they need to have is a pressure cooker. It8217;s possible to make even a tandoori chicken with it.8221;

As for the books, Rane is not only authoring but also publishing them. 8220;These books will have to be much bigger in size than my regular ones because Braille takes more than twice the space. As far as I know, there are no such cookbooks available for the blind. I have planned to publish just 50 such copies, 45 of which will be given away8221;.