The North Indian Thali

(This post is not inspired by any kind of regionalism at all. I very well acknowledge, appreciate and respect the different food habits of people of India which is an inseparable part of our varied cultural heritage.  The remarks are just for fun so please take it lightly.)

During my childhood in many movies and television serials, often I used to come across this dialogue, “Maa ke hath ke bane khane me jo baat hai vo kahi aur nahi”. Every time some Mr. Hero will utter this and my mother will point out to me, “Dekho kuch suna..aur ek tum ho jo khana dekh kr naak muh sikoda karte ho.. jab bade hoge tab pata chalega.” Honestly speaking at that time I didn’t like the food cooked at home. Those chapatis, plain simple vegetables seemed to be in no comparison to the spicy Kadhai paneer of restaurants, tadka Daal of dhabas and unlimited noodles and ice-creams at parties. Well after going to Kota, I too started believing in that particular dialogue. And then after staying in IIT Kanpur and eating in a Government mess, I started saying this very dialogue. From the past two months I am living in Bangalore and now I am ready to kill anyone who opposes this dialogue.

These last two months I have been continuously experimenting with food. (Because that’s the only thing you can do to console your heart, tongue and stomach. Yes! It gives you some positive hope that something tasty might end up on your table). In have eaten Dosa’s- from paper to plain and from set to pyaaz; Noodles- form veg to Singapore, Rice- from fried to masala and from plain to Punjabi, Idli- with sambhar without sambhar and from plain to rava. There are countless dishes whose names I do not recollect. Many times I have taken the South Indian Mini Meals, the details of which I will discuss later. One can estimate my frustration that one day I even ordered “American choupsey”, the dish which I hate most. I didn’t leave a single bit of it in the plate and swallowed it with the help of cold drinks (Because I had no strength left to experiment some other dish at that time). I even tried food by changing the alphabets in a word, like we ate Paratha and then Parotha. One can not even imagine that changing an ‘a’ with an ‘o’ can make a dish taste like shit. Our each day remains kind of incomplete. There is always a desire in this heart. There is a sense of incompleteness in life- Oh its not about love or girlfriends… its about food!!

The Chow Chow Bath dilemma

From the very first day this object was coming in the Menus. It was there in all restaurants. The name sounds like Chinese so we thought that it will be some Chinese dish. Then we observed that it has Bath in the end, many south Indian dishes have Bath in them so it must be some south-indian dish. Then somehow a weird thought struck our mind- What if it’s a hybrid of a Chinese and a South Indian dish- “Chow Chow” and “Bath”. Fuck man, no way we are going to try it. For many days we avoided it. For our lunch we go to one restaurant which is the only good one near our office. After one month almost all the menu was experimented out so with all our courage we ordered it. When the dish came, we realized it was not a hybrid. It has two parts- one is sweet and the other is salty. It took us 15 minutes to eat it. For the first 5 minutes it was like, “Wow what a tasty dish, why didn’t we try it earlier.” In the next 5 minutes, “we can have it often during lunch. It somewhat tastes like Suji halva.” In the next 5 minutes, “Yar its too sweet to take in this much quantity. I can not take it anymore.” We started feeling vomiting till the end of it. Finally some spicy bhujiya saved us. We never tried it again.

Now the South Indian mini meals are another tragedy. It has Rice, Rice, Rice and Rice. Sorry I exaggerated it. Well you will find Sambhar, Rasam, Saagu, Curd rice, masala rice, plain rice and papad. One day my boss was saying, “You north Indians eat very spice food.” Well the Sambhar, the Rasam are no less a spicy affair in Bangalore. The Tamilians and Andhras scold the Sambhar prepared here. I bet even a Punjabi can’t eat full cup of it without water. Last month I went to Tamil Nadu on a trip. I got to taste the Sambhar there. Really it was mouth-watering. I asked the waiter three times to bring it again. Also there is a great consistency in the taste of dishes across Bangalore, I don’t know how it is. No matter where you go, the taste of dishes doesn’t change. The quantity of rice which I have eaten during last two months will be equal to the quantity eaten during my rest of life.

The North Indian Thali (Deluxe!! Mind it)

Many restaurants provide you the North Indian food. But the minimum cost of a vegetable (generally it is fried potato) is Rs 70. If you have to eat out daily then you have to consider monthly budget also. The problem is you can’t even ask for money from your family now, because they know you are getting a handsome stipend. Instead they all think that we’ll get them some gifts from our first salaries. Ok so one needs to save. So what an economic and intelligent guy ends up doing is taking up a Thal.

The cost of this Thali varies from 60 Rs to 150 Rs across different restaurants. I have eaten a lot of it. But the thing is that the contents and the taste again is consistent. Normally a North Indian Thali consists of Tandoori Roti, Rice and many UFO’s. UFO’s ??? Yes- Unidentified Food Objects. After days of research I actually found out the ingredients- its roti, rice, curd rice, fried rice, daal/chhola, palak curry/mix veg, soup and a sweet. The first question is why the hell these people think that North Indians take soup daily with lunch/dinner. Anyways that thing in a bowl is soup, is also tough to figure out. At first I thought it was some kind of curry so I ate it with roti. Later I came to know the truth. The second question, “Does a North Indian always eat a tandoori roti.” He will die of indigestion. Can’t you give plain simple Tava roti. And to your surprise most of the restaurants don’t have it in their menus. There is an interesting story with curd rice. For the first time, when the plate came before us we thought that it was Kheer. There was no limit to our joy. But when we tasted it, it was sour and salty. For many days I ate it with roti and then rice and what not. Then it struck to my mind remembering my roomie Sravan that he used to eat rice with curd, that its curd rice. Now I understand why the people around me used to smile when I ate roti with it.

Babaji ki Roti

After a month, we found out a small dhaba near our home. It is run by a Bihari old man and he serves Bihari food with lots and lots of onion. Although the hygienic conditions are not good there but we still have our dinner daily over there. He is the saviour whom God has sent to save us.

 Well, “ Babaji ki booti ke bare me pata nahi, pr Babaji ki sukhi roti me bhi  bahut anand hai”