The Culinary Delights of Singaperumal Koil

Two months ago, owing the strange combination of an ambiguously worded notice and an irate priest, I found myself back in the Middle of Nowhere, aka Singaperumal Koil. And I found myself getting nostalgic at every dusty turn of the road pockmarked with potholes. The railway cross, where the gate would stay closed for hours on end, waiting for the Pondichery "Superfast" to please, for the love of all that's holy, to crawl by. The bikes weaving their way under said closed railway gate, some of the drivers' contorting their bodies through impossible angles to do so. "Nellai Jeyam", or "Three Star" as it was nicknamed (...another story...) with it's overpriced, oily food. The beautiful evenings, yes, the evenings are actually beautiful here. 


This once-laidback town is now the hotbed of activity. With it's proximity to the Mahindra World City SEZ, the town is an easy option for all those lazy bums who can't even begin to think of a one-hour commute at ungodly hours every morning. And with it's cheap rents it certainly seems like an intelligent option as well. After all, when your colleagues wake up at 6.30 to catch the local sardine can to earn their daily bread, you're still fast asleep. You wake up leisurely at 8. A quick wash, and half an hour later you're at your seat. Just in time to watch the bedraggled souls from Far, Far Away crawl in. Hah!


But wait. That's just one side of the story. The other side surfaces around 8 in the night, when you are done earning your daily bread. Any SE worth his obfuscated code will know that the salary he earns is not meant to withstand continued forays into The Employer's Food Court. And thus the junta tries various tactics.


For example, The Barber used to survive one a scientifically crafted diet. His daily intake went something like this. His breakfast would mostly be a poori or a dosa of some kind from the food court. This would last him till around noon. But he would extend it's lifespan with a chronologically well-placed cup of coffee from the Coffee Day vending machine. Now comes the centrepiece of his master plan. Everyone else left for lunch as soon as the clock struck half past twelve, and would be waylaid by the incredibly tasteless, and yet vividly colorful and expensive dishes on display at the food courts. 70 bucks and an extremely unsatisfactory lunch later, we would be back at our seats. And then, Barber would head out.


See, by now, there would be nothing available at the food courts except Vegetarian Meals. Again, incredibly tasteless. But amazingly filling and of course, cheap. As long as there was no choice to make, it became easy to do. "I'm having this because there's nothing else. Damn. I'm saving a lot of money."


The advantage was two-fold. One, that vegetative mix of rice, and vegetables, just sat around in your stomach for a long, long time. So there was no question of busting another 30 on "snacks" at teatime. Two, the money of course.


The Barber. Financial Planner Extraordinaire.


Anyways, once this lifestyle of "Company Food-courts" blew a hole in our pockets, we would have to turn to the Culinary Delights of Singaperumal Koil. Street food.


Now, I have to put up this disclaimer. If you:

• are one of those people who care about things like "hygiene"
• are one of those people who care about things like calories
• are a Non-Tamil/vegetarian/looking for food from your part of the world
• are a girl

forget about it. Street food is not for everyone. It's just one of those things. You don't mind it, or you do. If you don't like street food, don't have it. But don't try to convince a Believer. You're just wasting your time.


No, you won't feel like eating it if you see how it's made.
No, it's probably not clean, but hey, everybody eats it.
No, it's loaded with everything that's "supreme" as far as "taste" goes, and "questionable" in every other factor.
No, you will not get North Indian food here.
No, you will not get Kerala food here.


You get the drift.


You can't be dicey about having the fare. You dive in the deep end. If you feel the need for street food, don't let your better senses come in the way. Go on. Dive in the deep end.


The cornerstone of any roadside food stall is the porotta. With absolutely zero nutritional value, this fluffed up disc made of maida is extremely popular among the working class. Why? Because it fills you up and takes a long time to digest. Good enough.


Eggs. There's your sunny-side-up sprinkled with pepper. Yeah, we call it hafaayil. "Half boiled?". No. Hafaayil. Then there is the aamleyt, the country cousin of the omlette. The one-seyd, which is like an aamleyt, except that it's not flipped over, leaving the top jelly-like, yummy.


Decidedly, the best thing you can ask for at any roadside stall is the kothu porotta. infiniteascent dug up a Wikipedia page for this delicious mix of porotta, tomatoes, eggs, and onions. I tell you, you have not lived until you've had this Food of Gods.


Kal Dosa is the cheapest dosa around. The guy slops down a bowl of dosa mix on the sizzling tawa, and shapes it into a thick disc. With the same bowl! Pile two of these onto a plate and douse them with sambar, and you're full. If you want it thin and crispy, you don't ask for a "ghee roast" or "paper roast", like you do at those elite, cutthroat, "high class" vegetarian restaurants. Instead you ask for a nice. And, voila, you get this elliptical, wafer-thin expanse of dosa, folded-up but not folded-up enough to prevent it from hanging over the edge of the plate and scraping the table, as the guy plonks it down in front of you.


Idlis, are cheap, and fast, but not easy to come by. And they sell like the hot cakes they are. So if it's around 9, forget it, you will not be having idli for dinner.


Like I said before, street food is not for everyone. And when I first set foot here, it wasn't for me either. But Singaperumal Koil has this habit of growing on you. I didn't realize it but by the time I was ready to leave a year ago, I had become a regular at most of the 4 or 5 roadside stalls that dot the service road from the Railway Station to Thirutheri. The Thoothukudi, famous for its kothu porotta. The kal dosa of Nellai Jeyam, before it sold its soul and went the "high class" way. The steaming idlis of Aandipetti. The vada from that nameless place near the Singaperumal Koil railway station.


I never thought I'd say this, but when I do finally get out this place, I am going to miss Singaperumal Koil.

Of Signals And Blunders

I don't know what's going on, but suddenly, it seems like everyone is hooking up, or breaking up, or getting married.

A friend of mine was talking to me about how her boyfriend's "advice" had messed up his friend's potential love-life. Twice.

Another friend of mine keeps telling me he's "just friends" with this girl from some North Indian town (forgot the name), who keeps calling him up at 2 in the night to ask him what he's doing. And from there, through the haze of slumber, I can hear them mumble nothings on the phone till 4 or 5. Of course, they're just friends. That phrase has always made me want to ask "Are there 'unjust' friends?". Maybe next time, I will.

Anways, this set me thinking about the whole guy-girl thing, and how it's the only thing that's standing between Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything. So, let's try to break it down into scenarios, and try to take it ahead from there.

Scenario 1. The Smooth Hook-up

Guy meets girl. Guy likes girl. Girl likes guy. The universe conveniently looks the other way, as everything quietly slips into place. Some people have all the luck, what you gonna do about it.

Boring.

Scenario 2. The Saga

Guy meets girl. Guy likes girl. Girl can't decide. Guy loses interest. Girl likes guy. Guy likes another girl. And so on and so forth. Their "like" is so out of phase. Like sine and cosine waves. But eventually, they somehow clank into place. This is the stuff Karan Johar movies are made of. I think.

The Best Friend has the best seat in the house. Bring on the popcorn! But, he/she may feel like offing himself/herself at any of the million, endless fights the mismatched couple go through, and then think that The Best Friend has the answer to all of Life's Questions.

Scenario 3. The Crash-and-Burn
Ah! My personal favourite. This is completely guys' domain. Because, I am yet to see a girl who has crashed and burned because the guy wanted to be "just friends". Whereas every other guy is literally a phoenix (...now you know why the blog is named so.).

So, as I was saying. This usually involves painful, usually unreciprocated affection/attraction/crush/luuurve.

It follows a fairly predictable pattern. Guy sees girl. Guys falls for girl. Girl is still unaware of guy's existence. Guy befriends girl. Guy gets "signals". Guy goes for the Hail Mary pass. Bam! Just friend-ed. Or even worse, brother-ed.

Let's pause for a minute here. Signals. The one word responsible for more Crash-and-Burns around the world than bird hits. But let's make one thing very, very clear. Guys suck at reading "signals". In fact we suck so bad we shouldn't even be trying. I don't know if it's the Y Chromosome messing up the reception, or what. But we as a gender CANNOT read signals. We just can't.

Just like girls have no idea they're sending said signals.


Coming back to the point, when all is said and done, the guy finds he's been shut out with clinical efficiency. Still, the damage is reparable. The guy can pick up what remains of his dignity, and make a dash for it. Preferably to sub-Saharan Africa, where they speak in clicks and whistles. And hide for a long, long time. IF he has brains. But, the Crash-and-Burn usually indicates the lack of one. So some of us choose to hang on to that tiny, microscopic thread of hope left trailing behind her skirt hem. "Maybe, I can still get her to come around...".

There is only one way that particular line of thought has been known to end. And it has been documented extensively through binge-ing sessions which involve our Ragged Romeo sobbing his way through several bottles of spirits. Ending with the declaration, "I hate women! No more women for me!". Despite this very-nearly-gay outburst, it leads him on to Rebound (TM), and Relapse (TM). Yes, it is a Vicious Cycle, I tell you.

Guys, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Cliched, but true. Move on. It's less painful. Ladies, ladies. Tell us you don't like us, tell us you hate our guts. But please don't tell us you want to be "just friends". You know you don't really mean it. It's just that sympathy alarm ringing. You know it, the one which makes the guy with a broken leg irresistible. Switch off the alarm. Shoot us in the head.

In extreme cases, girls have been known to employ that much-feared WMD. Brotherification. "But you're like a brother to me!". This is the relationship equivalent of Chinese Water Toruture. It's like, "You're family! Except, not in the way you want to." The guys is supposed to feel happy about the neutering. After all, he's practically family. Ladies, Ladies. Spare us the sympathy. We didn't spend all that time being totally out of character being gentlemanly and all, just so that we could qualify as your elder sibling. Again, switch off that alarm. Headshot, please.

Yeah, yeah, I had to have had some experience, being able to dissect such a tricky topic so professionally. Yeah, I've done my time. And I've come out an older, if not wiser man. Guys, word of advice. Switch off those Signal Receptors next time you see a girl you like. Girls, well, just switch off that alarm.

Red Skies.

Once upon a time.

Somewhere in Kerala. Or is it? I have been here before. I think I have. On a day like this when the sky shone red.

The temple gopuram rises majestically into a cloudless sky. I glance up, seeing its sepia tones light up the earth like a long forgotten photograph.

As I enter through the temple gate, I can see the sparse crowd of devotees making their way around the temple. The steady chant of mantras echo from the inner sanctum. Why am I here?

I see you. A face so familiar, and yet a memory of a life that's so far away in the past that it seems like a half-forgotten dream. Do I know you?

Your eyes are still the same. But how do I know that?

And an eternity passed but the sun still hovered, just above the horizon, as the sky shone red.

The throng of devotees glance at us as they pass by. There is no time. We have to complete the pradakshina, before the sun sets. Why? Why do we have to? Why can't we just stay like this, here, as the sky shines red?

It's raining, you say, looking up. Your eyes blink as raindrops fall from a cloudless, red sky. I raise my palms skywards, feeling them splash on my skin. I have to keep my eyes open.

Around us, I see the devotees walking faster now. Don't we have to make the pradakshina, before the sun sets, I hear myself asking you. You smile, as if humouring me.

You said, I start, my voice sounding accusing. I know, but there's still time, you say, taking my hand in yours. I have known you, from a long time ago. When we met on the banks of the Sarayu.

You told me then, that you would see me again. On the banks of the Sarayu.

The sounds of a raging river fill the air, as the rushing water tumbles over craggy rocks, throwing a mistry spray into the air. The stones paving the temple courtyard are dotted with the remnants of raindrops from the cloudless, red sky.

The sun hides halfway below the horizon now, the last rays of the day lighting up the gopuram. The rain has all but stopped, leaving us both standing below the fading light of a red sky. It is time, you say, coming closer. But you said there was time, I say, feeling an inexplicable sadness. You said there was time to make the pradakshina, I say, petulantly.

I know, you say, but the sun is setting.

We just have halfway to go, I say. I don't know why, but we have to make the pradakshina. We have to. You glance westward, wistfully, and for a moment, the fading rays dance off the tears welling in your eyes. Or are they raindrops?

This is as far as we can go, you say, but I will always be here, on the banks of the Sarayu.

My fingers close around nothing.

Wait, I stumble, as I grasp at thin air. My voice echoes through the empty courtyard.

I must complete the pradakshina. I cannot turn back. The right shoulder always faces the deity. The shadow of the gopuram waits ahead, as red skies glow, and the sun slowly sinks below the horizon.

The light from the garbhagriham spills over into the courtyard, sparkling from the raindrops on the stones, like a thousand diamonds scattered on the ground. Like a thousand mirrors shattered. I look up and the rain comes down again, from a cloudless, red sky.

This time, I close my eyes, and wake up.

The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way."

- Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

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In The Heat of The Night

Somedays, the power went off at 3 in the night. And it would stay that way for another 3 hours. The fact that we knew it would happen everyday, did nothing to help. The heat, the mosquitoes, would get us out of bed by 3.30. You would've found us sitting on our compound wall, our midnight hangout spot. Sometimes there would be a gentle breeze. But most nights, the air was deathly still. And stuffy.

The JTO would regale us with stories of his college days. Hulk would stand off to a corner and light up another Wills. The Fraud, would inevitably be the butt of all jokes. Eventually, we would all come around to our favourite topic. The "bleddy" place, and how to get out of here. Around 4.30, the laughs would run out, and the sleep overpowering would send us back to bed.

4.30 AM. For 5 mins, the mosquitoes would be distracted, and we'd fall asleep. After a long, long time, they wake us up again. The time on your mobile says 4.40 AM. Waving our hands around, we'd dive under the blanket, inspite of the stifling heat, just to get away from the blood-thirsty monsters, and sleep, for the love of all that's holy!

Not so fast. There's a goods train that heads down south to God Knows Where, and the Honking Loco-F-Ing-Motive wakes up the entire town, as it rumbles past our house, horn blaring, wheels rattling. Turn over, go back to sleep. For a long, long time.

One little bugger has gotten under the blanket, and he has to hover close to your ear with that irritating drone. It should be atleast 5.30 now, you think. The mobile shows 4.50. An eternity later, it's 4.52.

By the time the fans come back on at 6, you have fallen asleep somehow. Inspite of the mosquitoes. Inspite of the Chennai heat. Inspite of rumbling locomotives.

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Friday Night Lights On Monday?

TGIF parties were a given. So much so that they became tradition. But sometimes the week got to us even before it began. Monday has been accepted as the toughest day of the week, worldwide, and the smallest member of the herd felt the heat first.

The Little Guy's tactics for getting everyone else to join him on a Weekday Binge were rather Machiavellian. Given the fact that Mr. Kottayam's opinion held sway with the rest of us, he used this to leverage his moves. His planning went thus.

The Little Guy : Dude, what plans for the evening?

Dude X : Whaa? It's Monday! Are you nuts?!
TLG : But dude, Mr. Kottayam is interested. In fact he told me he badly needs a drink, it's been a horrible day (...Mondays are ALWAYS horrible, he's just making you focus on it...)
Dude X: Hmmm...I dunno, lemme think about it. Who else is coming?
TLG : You (...notice how he's already counted you in...), me, and Mr. Kottayam, and everyone else will come (...sufficiently vague enough...)
Dude X : Hmmm, ok I guess if everyone's coming...

TLG : Okay! Come fast, our place!

Now, substitute X = 1 to 7.

And now, the prestige.

TLG : Mr. Kottayam, everyone's like "Horrible day."
Mr. Kottayam : Hmmm.

TLG : So they're all planning to get together tonight. You in?

Mr. K : Everyone?
TLG : Yeah, kinda, Dude 1, Dude 2, everyone.
Mr. K : Ok. I'm in.

The Little Guy. Inventor of the Tuesday Hangover.

*******************

Run Ashaan, Run!

The JTO had done it. He had become the first one to escape Sunshine Country. And to a government job, no less. So, a party was in order, and you know us, we don't scrimp when it comes to parties. There was the usual cohort of Monks, Mansions, and Teachers. There were a couple of fowl, tandoorified. Extremely heavy metal poured out from The Little Guy's big speakers. By around 11, we were all zonked.

As we stood around outside the house, near the wall, everyone was talking to everyone else. Ashaan was in fine form, swaying even without music, puffing away non-stop. Suddenly he turns to me and announces, "I wanna go running. You coming?". "You wanna go running now? Dude, it's the middle of the night!". Apparently, that wasn't the response he was looking for. Turning to The JTO, who was animatedly discussing Irfan Pathan's bowling with The Fraud, Ashaan announced again, "I wanna go running.". The JTO paused, mid-sentence, and said "Ok?" to Ashaan, and continued his discussion.

Having done that, he turned around, apparently to laugh at Ashaan. But the man had already set off down the road. Arms pumping, head high, potbelly rolling, off into the night. As he disappeared round the bend, we hollered at him to come back. Nothing doing. A full 10 minutes later, we heard the sounds of running footsteps. Yes, Ashaan was back, arms pumping, head high, potbelly rolling. As we cheered loudly, he ran back in through the gate, panting, and drenched in sweat. "What happened Ashaan?", someone asked. Through the gulps of breath, he said, "I felt like puking, so I figured I'd jog it off. And then I smoked, and now I'm back, boys!".

And then he tottered off to the road and proceeded to do exactly what he had "jogged off". We christened the road, Wall Street*.

*pronounced 'vaal' -verb, to puke your guts out. Origin: Malayalam, slang, informal

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Those were the days when the world was firmly in our grasp. And the hair was firmly on our heads. Everything's slowly changing, but it does feel good, to look back on those not-too-long-ago days of craziness, and go, as Ashan would say, "Aliya, nostalgia!"

Stories From Long Ago - Part II (a.k.a How I Discovered Water)

"So what story are you going to tell me today?"

"But I thought it was your turn today!"

"But I like listening to stories from when you were little. I want a story!"

"Ok, ok, ok. Hmmm. So, once upon a time..."

****************************************************

Summer meant running around all day, climbing trees, watching the same old movie tapes again and again, and over again. Home Alone. Tom & Jerry. Beautiful People. The Gods Must Be Crazy. There was this plant in the Kalahari desert. It's root looked something like an overgrown potato. And the bushmen scraped the skin off the root and squeezed it, and they got water. 

If you dig deep enough, you will find water. I read that somewhere. Also, the soil was always damp when we dug, no matter how dry the sand was at the top. So the water was there. It was just a matter of digging deep enough.

But then there's only so deep you can dig with your hands. We needed some heavy machinery. There was this rusty garden hoe lying in the darkened store room. The answer to the water problem of Cherthala.

So one fine, jobless morning, me and my trusty friend, started digging for water in my backyard. As I hacked through the earth, we became excited seeing the damp soil beneath. "We're almost there! Keep digging!", he yelled. And pretty soon, there was a thunk!, and water started flowing out of the hole in the ground. Well, I hadn't expected it so soon. Because it was supposed to be really deep underground. But who cares, we'd struck water! We had solved the water crisis! We were going to be famous! (...yeah, bang on, that last one.)

Soon, the backyard was flooded, and the water was snaking through the fence into my neighbour's yard. By now, my aunt had started yelling at me from the house about something. I had been too elated to listen to her, but the water wasn't stopping. How do you stop a natural source of water? "I'll plug the hole with a brick!", I said. There were plety of them lining the hedge anyway. The brick disappeared into the "spring" with a disappointing plop. And yeah, the water kept coming. Now what? The geniuses that we were, we decided to "build a dam!". Yeah, we started piling up mighty walls of sand around the edges of the mini lake. Epic fail. The water just flowed past like they didn't exist.

Now, the neighbours' servants started coming out to see what was going on. Turns out the water in the houses had stopped. One of them yelled at us saying "I haven't cooked lunch yet, and now their little girl doesn't have any food for the afternoon, all because of you two!".

By this time, we had sort of figured out we'd probably need to hightail it to the arid Kalahari to escape the hiding of a lifetime when our parents got back from work. And that the "spring", was in fact an underground water pipe. And the "thunk!" was the sound of the hoe breaking a sizeable hole into it.

An odd jobsguy from the nearby hospital turned up after a while, and surveyed the destruction. Water was still bubbling up from our "spring". Two yards were flooded. A group of seething servants. And two very sheepish looking kids.

"You guys did this?".

Er no, there was this giant crab...

Er no, a mole...

Er no, this hole just *appeared* this morning...

"Yeah...we were digging..."

He turned off the water, and fixed it, and we stood around watching him. Pretty soon, all the water seeped back underground (...from whence it came.). The hole was covered up. The water in the houses was back. And I think the little girl had her rice porridge or whatever she wanted for lunch.

I didn't come out of the house for a week.

********************************************************

"Hahahaha! You were a menace, weren't you?"

"Hey, I thought I could hit a natural spring!"

"Hahahaha! A natural spring!"

"Well yeah, the way they showed it on TV, I thought I could. But I knew something was wrong when the water came out so soon."

"Hahahaha!"

"Yeah, yeah, that's enough. Now go to sleep."

"But I'm not sleepy any more! I want another story!"

"Another story? But if I tell you all the stories now, what will you do tomorrow? And besides, you have class tomorrow. So go to sleep now."

"Hmmm, ok. But will you tell me another story tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I will."

"Ok. Goodnight..."

"Goodnight..."