And I was thinking....

It was almost 10 years ago when I stepped into the southern part of India. Took a flight from Delhi to Chennai and then rented a car to a non-descriept place called Vellore. To make matters worse, my dad decided he should make me aware with the entireity of the city and took me to the railway station. Two platforms (one apparently to bring in the train and another to let it go), one idli shop and lots of monkeys making a mockery of my situation.


Now imagine all this happening to you when you are 18, and travelling from THE city in India " Delhi" to a place called Katpadi in the middle of no-where.. You are right. I cried. I cried all the way back from the station, and all the way from the hostel to my college, when my parents said good bye and almost a month on the phone. Begging them to take me out of this place, sending me back to Venky in Delhi to do chemistry honors. To hell with engineering.


Food - Ofcourse.


My experience with the culture began when i walked into our grand old mess. Very messy ofcourse, also very ricey. Uh-Hullo? I was from the land of wheat, I wasn't asking for something fancy, but roti was not exactly a luxury I was asking for..or so i thought. Time and friends finally coaxed me into become a rice-eating Indian. Not without cursing the quality of the rice, lack of dal to go along with it, and making faces at the sabzi served with it. The only grace was dollops of ghee doled out free. (Yes, dint help the figure I know)
2 months later, I read a flyer on the mess door, inviting us all for a mouth watering dinner on occassion of our chancellors birthday. I actually dressed up and left for dinner with a bunch of excited friends, imaging tandoori chicken, naan and paneer. While the profs kept us away from the mess table for a while, chatting with us asking frivolous questions if we liked the food (no!) and other things, my eyes kept wandering to the table, before one of the profs noted my anxiety and let me rush to the table. I was super excited to notice the food table was looooong. I picked up the lid of caserole to notice.... Plain rice... sigh... next one to see... Lemon Rice... Next ...Tamarind rice...next...some green rice...next..sambhar rice..next ..curd rice... next... some sweet rice... next...pongal. I cried again. In the middle of the ground, in the middle of about 5-6 people. I creid. How can they do this to me? How can a feast be made of all rice? How, and why? I accepted that day that I must have been one of the gluttons mentioned as "sinners" in the bible to have been punished like this.


That day I gave up. Gave up on expecting things to be my way, food to be my way. Thankfully, a new light dawned. I started small, with rasam and sambhar, then with avial...then with the sambhar rice (which is strikingly similar to our khichdi) and then pongal. Idli and Dosa were a given. It actually tasted ok. Tasted good in fact. From there the journey of my love for sambhar started. With a vengance. So much so that today I am a proud cook of authentic sambhar, complete with the small onions and the tamarind water, and can make minimum 3 varieties of it. Still cant make pongal (though I am on my way to master it) very well, but can make a good dosa (With ready made mix), uttapam, sambhar, and even avial. We will talk about Kerala food later, but can make chicken and veggie stew mallu style too. Drop by sometime.