Nobody seems to be having idlis in full. All around the Dining Hall, there is lonesome cutlery full of fractions of rice-cakes, deserted by loathsome patrons. You wouldn’t believe your eyes if you saw it. It’s disturbing.
Dosas? Sure. Take these flattened disks and stuff them down your throat, you glutton, you pathetic sleaze. Lick the plate clean, drain the coconut chutney down your starved Sunday-morn gut. When I collect dosas for the person who lives two doors away at the hostel, I tremble at the pride of these rotund crepes. Perhaps they will wallow in less glory if they knew they would sit on a table, be witness to gambling flies and be baked in the sun till late noon, when the supposed eater would roll out of their bed and smear them in chutney. But they would, of course, leave no fractions. You couldn’t tell from looking at the plate later. Such is the majesty.
Samosas? Well, be my guest. At the Dining Hall, you are welcome to eat sturdy samosas that are stuffed with potatoes as bland as a boyband, probably from the 60s, because they taste so recycled. You think aloud. What is this missing? Spice, herbs, potatoes, oil, you name it. All in there. Sitting in a regal consistency. Edible banality. But this too, mind you, is gobbled down whole. If it isn’t as hot as the sun, which it usually is.
Okra-peanut slurry . . . I wish to skip this. It is my favorite vegetable stew out of everything they offer. I love it for its adventure. The frolic of nutty flavors around your mouth while okra colors your vision and gives you constipation. Sometimes people don’t eat it whole. Which normal person eats vegetables if there is no need to? Down the trash chute you go. It is a custom everyone is too old to grow out of. But you would be a jerk to leave a trace of okra-peanut on your plate. I will ensure a mob armed with pitchforks chases you down the healthier route to gastric ills.
Bananas. Bountiful, beautiful. Objectively the easiest fruit to eat after the grape, bananas are seldom left half-eaten. If they are, it is the first sign of the fall of everything we have ever stood for. If you enter the Hall and see a half-eaten banana, rest assured you have slept through peril. The world is a dusty mess, and it can only get worse.
Set dosa? Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the rancor of mouths munching on the doughy, tiresome delicacy. I do enjoy it. It is most wonderful. Dogs also like it.
But the ignoble idli. The ignominious, blasphemous, humble cake of rice. The culinary curse, the gastric goonda. Witness the idli in its flying saucer-shaped temerity. You take one too many. Do take 12 too many, who cares. I don’t, because I do. When you grab it, it breaks apart. Every crumb an avalanche. You run it through a ditch of coconut chutney. It drips around the place. You eat it in a flash. But there is always a mysterious fraction that nestles freely on your plate. It refuses to be noticed. There is no polite way to say this, but eating more than five idlis is like watching paint dry. It refuses to slide down your considerable neck. You bang the table, call to attention the other eaters, they notice your tragedy. You’re rushed in an ambulance. The nurse, when told, nods understandably and mumbles about the old idliitis. Why do you take so much more than you can chew?
The secret to this is in when the idli is served. Morning patrons arrive like the monsoon: a trickle at first and then all at once. Everybody cues up, the line snaking past the Vindhyas. You look behind you, at the turrets and minarets of people waiting impatiently. You take 12. Who knows. Perhaps you would want more later.
Bad call.
You can’t possibly eat 12 idlis. Who told you you could? Certainly not me. You get up, stare at the morsel. The morsel stares back and speaks to you in gang signs.
Rarely has a food item enthralled the masses like the idli. It is the quintessential supplement to the vada, greasy like Elvis Presley, friendly and handy. But it is obstinate. Obdurate. Occult. Not made for Beatles fans or those without taste. Same thing only.