[Firstpost]- South meets North: Chennai weddings turn over a new leaf

If you are good at film trivia, you’ll recall that a certain Shekhar Subramaniam, video game inventor, stirred up emotions when he stirred curds into his noodles. Curds in noodles?? That’s atrocious! At the most some may add a dash of sambar powder while cooking noodles, but this is a wrong and unfair depiction of South Indian food preferences by Bollywood, protested many film goers... And with that SRK’s Ra One box office earnings may have suffered a bit in Chennai.

Yet fusion food, (or should that be confusion food) is drawing the crowds to rave reviews in halls everywhere. I mean wedding halls, not cinema halls. I have just returned from a grand wedding reception myself, and have witnessed a kind of national integration through food. On my large Melamine plate, (but it had a banana leaf pattern on it), Karnataka’s bisi bele bhat mixed readily with Punjab’s paneer makhani; and Andhra’s pesarattu flirted with Maharashtra’s shrikhand; while a colourful Kashmiripulao found compatibility with Kerala’s avial. What’s more, some declared the bakedmacaroni au gratin to be a fine accompaniment for the puris, even as it added a dose of the international…

From the puliodharai to the pachidi to the pooshnikai kozhambu to the pal payasam, this was Tamilian food at its authentic best.

Now before Chennai food purists start throwing idlis at me in protest, let me hasten to add that all was normal and perfect in the morning wedding session when we sat down for a traditional lunch served on banana leaves. Ah! Absolutely nothing like our South Indian wedding food, we declared. From thepuliodharai to the pachidi to the pooshnikai kozhambu to the pal payasam, this was Tamilian food at its authentic best.

Served to us by ‘Mountbatten Mani’ catering service (any avid wedding attender in Chennai would know that this legendary cook earned his nickname by once pleasing Lord Mountbatten himself with a delicious badam halwa…and his family continues the legacy).

But my cousin Balu sitting next to me at the lunch wasn’t as happy as I was. Apparently at his sister’s wedding, they had a far more innovative chef who had served tomato soup rather than rasam, and a gupta curry (I think he meant kofta curry) to go with mini pancakes. Yes, pancakes.

Anyway, coming back to the reception…just as the bride and groom turned up in a glittering ghagra choli and sherwani (Karan Johar’s dramatic influence on wedding reception costumery); the fare too was designed to embrace new trends. But before we gave in to our food cravings, we stopped to admire the food carvings. Displayed at the entrance were carrots sculpted into popular goddesses, rising proudly from pink lotuses that were shaped out of water melons. And holy macaroni. There was even a Ganesha made from a variety of pasta pieces, artistically glued together.

All around the hall colourful canopies served different cuisines. But we were frequently interrupted from reaching them by several men in green pointy hats: these were specially costumed servers who leapt before us every three minutes, compelling us to try an array of finger foods; including mini idlis decorated with carrot gratings.

Then we jostled with a thousand guests, piling on eagerly from stall to canopied stall. Now why didn’t somebody tell us earlier that there was a chaat stall too? We would have held back on the puran polis and gulped gol guppas instead…

Finally smiling hostess ladies with identical blue and gold saris showed us the way to the dinner’s finale; where even the diabetic-prone said, what the heck, and fought sweet tooth and nail in the scramble for desserts.

Next week I am going to a North Indian wedding. I am heading straight to the chaatstall first this time. But I do hope it’s not the North-meets-South kind of surprise …I’m not sure if I am going to like gol guppas with rasam inside, however innovative that may be.

This article was featured on http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/south-meets-north-chennai-weddings-turn-over-a-new-leaf-535866.html

Email: indubee8@yahoo.co.in

[Firstpost] Sridevi’s English-vinglish can thank Chennai

Sridevi, one of Chennai’s famous residents, will shortly be regaling us with her English-Vinglish on the big screen. This is also a proud reminder that we Chennaiites, or rather Madrasis, got a headstart in learning the King’s language before the rest of India.

At our recently concluded Madras Week celebrations, we recalled that it was here in Madras, 373 years ago, that the British got serious about their empiring in India—setting up the East India Company in Fort St George near the shore. And just as the Viceroy’s men stole some local delicacies and made it theirs — like rasam or milagu thani which they fancily rechristened as ‘mullagtawny soup’— it was only fair that the Madrasis stole and popularised English foods in India.

Image courtesy: Paul Fernandes

Like “Bred-Butter-Armlet” (said as one word, mind it), that is still displayed at many a roadside shack, catering to the continental preferences of our auto-drivers.

But when it comes to our unabashed bashing of English phonetics, we Chennaiites really have our mothers to blame. Well, our mother tongue actually. Because when baby Tamilians learn the Tamil alphabet from their ammas, they find that one particular letter pronounced ‘pa’, could well be ‘pa’ or ‘ba’ or even ‘fa’. So if a jolly waiter in a Chennai hotel asks if you’d like some Jabadhi, (as written on their menu) do say a hasty ‘No’ and stick to dosas. That mysterious dish is actually the humble chapatti, pronounced and spelt the Tamil way…with our knack for liberally adding wherever possible, the letter ‘h’ (pronounced yech, of course). In fact for our Southern purists, Hindi never quite sounds like Hindi, unless you spell it as Hindhi.

For further evidence that the true-blue Tamil speaker readily substitutes a pa phonetic for a fa --there’s this intriguing item I used to see in the Today’s Special board outside a Naarth Indian restaurant : Malai Gupta. (But just for the benefit of doubt, maybe it was a kofta dish whose secret recipe was handed down from the Gupta dynasty…)

Some time ago my cousin Raju from the US (who is --what else?-- a brainy techy Tamilian working for Google) came on a visit to Chennai. Tired of American supersized hamburgers, Raju felt like gorging on Indian fast food for a change. So we set off in my car, and crawled through the by-lanes of Mylapore looking for a good place serving quick ready-meals. “Oh my god, and what’s that!” exclaimed Raju suddenly. I looked up at the signboard he was pointing to: “Kailash Restorant. Hot Mutton Pups daily”.

Image: Paul Fernandes

Now animal rights activists may well be alarmed wondering if this is how Chennai’s corporation deals with the stray dog menace. Not to worry: the hotel owner was merely advertising “Mutton Puffs”—pronounced and written the Tamil way. (Neither was Mutton Pups a smaller portion of the desi Hot Dog…).

And while on the subject of dogs, we also fervently hoped that “Paw Bhaji” on the menu had nothing to do with a poor doggy’s feet.

By the time we’d finished, Raju had had quite a bellyful –of chuckles as well as idli-vadai-sambar. So walking a few streets away to the car was welcome. Those narrow eating streets had room only for pedestrians and cyclists, and even had this firm notice at the beginning, for the hungry truck driver:

‘No entry for Larry.’

And just as my cousin Raju was wondering if that tiny belly-ache setting in was from overeating or laughing, we saw this painted notice that completely over-turned my explanation that a true-blue Tamilian cannot say F words: CAR NO FARKING.

This was featured on http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/sridevis-english-vinglish-can-thank-chennai-447464.html

[iDiva]- Camels Are Good For the Sole

I have begun jotting down notes during my travels in a small book that should please the environmentalists: while the pages are hand-made paper, the cover is made out of recycled camel. Now before Maneka Gandhi sends out her men to get me, let me assure everyone that the camel that helped make my book cover died peacefully one day in its sleep, well into old age? Or so was the impression I got from the gent in a small bylane in Udhaipur selling camel-skin souvenirs like books and hand-made juthies. (His name was Harischandra-so I'm inclined to believe he was telling the truth).

But I do admit to a sudden wave of guilt and panic when I was standing in line to take a camel ride recently in Rajasthan. My little travel book was inside my bag! Would this camel sniff it out and get upset that his recent ancestor was now a notebook??

Anyway it was too late- Ranjit (for that was his name) was sitting before me and looking at me benignly through his thick eyelashes. Now I don't know if you ever got on a camel before, but the experience is quite like being back in kindergarten: first you see-saw forwards as the camel gets its gangly back legs up; then you rapidly see-saw backwards when the forelegs untangle themselves.

Yeeeee-aaaaaah!

That was me screaming in chorus along with the camel-keeper urging Ranjit away on my ride. And I realised why it is called "the ship of the desert"-the sudden lurching with each step could leave the weak-stomached feeling quite seasick?

But not me. Proud of my ready ability to adjust to the challenges of travel, I even managed a happy wave to my sister taking pictures for our holiday album. And remember the next time you head off to Dubai or Jaisalmer or Cairo: the trick of easy camel-riding is-- you have to see when the camel sees, and saw when the camel saws.

This was featured on http://www.idiva.com/opinion-entertainment/camels-are-good-for-the-sole/2083