Chapter 5 - The one with the push cart

So we come to the push cart. Food as you have seen seems to be playing a central part in my life, off late. Its like sleep…its never a big deal unless your not getting any. So the lack of good home cooked food has made sure that I am on the constant lookout for 1) cheap , 2) healthy and 3) accessible food. And it must include some good vegetables (its just a phase of mine). And I found just the place. At a good 25 minutes walk from my house, this place is at the event horizon of my third condition but its worth every sweat drop oozing out my forehead and every shoe bite on my heel. Not to mention the chaffing in unmentionable places (jeez…I have got to get my mind out of the gutter).

Right opposite the main entrance to the Rock Fort temple is a small bylane filled with hundreds of shops. Congestion is an understatement. Sardines have it good compared to this. Little shops selling everything from clothes to bidhis to jewellery. A mini Mylapore with a hill in the middle. And as the saying goes, if Rockfort cannot go to the restaurant, the restaurant will go to Rockfort. Enter the push carts. Meals on wheels. Cruisin’ Cuisine. The gluttons perambulator.

It all starts with a nice little ritual. The first day my friend took me over there, around 8pm in the evening (only dinner is served), the “Iyer Mama” was just setting up shop. Its appropriately called the “Iyer Kadai”, of course. Hey! Nobody said the Indians were known for their originality! After off-loading all the “andaa’s” and “yelai’s” onto his pushcart from an auto (no cooking is done on the street, its all home cooked), he quickly pulls out a small ‘yelai’, scoops a big helping of “dhadhojanam” (or thayir saadam, curd rice for you uneducated people) onto it, lights incense, sticks it in the middle of the rice and then raises the whole yelai as an offering over his head, saying some prayers, looking towards the temple on top of the hill. That done, he places the yelai in one corner of his push cart. He then pulls out another yelai, heaps it with different food and hands it over to the waiting old beggar on the side. Charity before business. He then wipes his hands on his lungi, turns to his paying customers and says, “Cholunga Saar! Enna Saapudiringe?”

These happen to be the very words that God utters when he welcomes you to Paradise.

A multitude of “variety rices”, uthapams, idli’s, chutneys, sambhars, poriyals, appalams, sweets, and pongals lay bare the quintessentially heart warming nature of South Indian comfort food, that drives thousands of burger and pizza-sick individuals like me from the gold paved streets and milk and honey baths of the western world into the arms of the warm embracing smell of fresh ghee on hot “chakarai pongal”! With due apologies to amma, I must mention that this man makes the best Kesari on this side of the NH-45. He even offers ‘paruppu-podi sadham’, with ‘goju’ on the side. A dollop of this, a scoop of that, a spoonful of ghee and a lot of licking and lip-smacking later, the loaded ‘burp’ that escapes from the deep confines of your stuffed-to-capacity stomach pays the ultimate tribute to the ultimate meal and leaves you yearning for nothing more than a very short trip to a six feet by four feet of space and one pillow. On the side of the road if necessary.

I hope I have given enough incentive to see some of you people down here in Trichy. See you soon.

Chapter 2

Lots of stuff to write about. Where to begin. How about a positive note. The thing I have begun to look forward to everyday. A hot tea at 7:15 in the morning at the road side “tea-kaddai”, while waiting for my bus to come pick me up. In one week its become so much of a routine that the ‘kaddai’ owner knows to have it ready as soon as he sees me. I don’t have to ask. That really gives me a kick. Oh! That’s only 3 ruppees for a delectable “chaya” first thing in the morning shared in the company of auto drivers and miscellaneous wayfarers, pretending to read the tamil paper while they are actually ogling at the pictures of the actresses on the last page. Share damn it! This alone, I feel, is worth the move back from Tampa.

And yes, I did mention a bus. A company bus that takes me to and from work everyday. Tuesdays to Saturdays full day. Sunday half day. Monday off. Déjà vu. I did this for 4 years going to engineering college. Is that why it feels so comfortable? I’m surprised that it feels so comfortable. And of course, at work, the hot coffee at 9:00am brought by the office boy (office thatha?). Tea if you like. All thick. All sweet. Just the way I like it. We do have to pay for it. 2 ruppees and 50 paisa. One in the morning and one in the afternoon to dust away those looming cobwebs of post lunch miasma. Don’t forget the snacks boy who comes around at 4:00pm on the dot. One egg puff for 4 ruppees. Yummy. As long as I’m on food might as well mention breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast and lunch in the canteen at work. A humongous hall filled with about 500 people. Eating. Noisy. Background music of some movie song remixed using classical carnatic instruments. Ten ruppees. Three idli’s and one vadai. One dosai if available. Lunch 17 ruppees. Meals. Two vegetables and okra (ladies finger) sambhar, with pappad, oily and half done. Yummy! And lest I forget, we clean our own plates, using dollops of dish washing powder using just our hands. No sponge. Nothing. Just heap a handful on to the plate, rinse it out and your done. For the sake of sanity you don’t imagine the thousand other people who have done the same thing with that same plate. Dinner is at any restaurant near my house (mansion!) Nothing really to write home about. Or blog about. But yes, food does play an important role not only in my life, but in every Tom, Dick and Hari’s who works in the plant. Strange but true. The plant might be going down the drain but goddamn it my tea better be hot!

Anyway…so much for food. It will pop its beautiful head up from time to time in further blogs. Will cover other stuff in the future. Keep loggin in. If not you’ll never know about the story of me and the push cart ‘kalyana sapaadu’. Aha! Intrigued! Same channel. Same webpage. Till next time. Vanakkam.