One good thing about living in Bengaluru is that I get my fav food idli (savoury rice cake), for breakfast, lunch and dinner, even though it tastes like well, nothing.
I grew up in Hyderabad in south India and most of my friends were from families that had migrated from the neighbouring city of Chennai (it was then known as Madras) and we would go off to a diner in the evening called Kamath Taj Mahal, I think it was called, and gorge on dosa, vada (Indian savoury doughnuts), and my fav, idli.
Why their families migrated from Madras to Hyderabad is a mystery, but I suspect it was due to the horrible muggy and hot weather in Chennai. (“Darling, we are moving to Hyderabad, I can’t stand this weather anymore.” “But, my love, do you know how hot it can get in Hyderabad. I hear the sparrows drop dead from the trees in summer?”) Idli is made from rice that is soaked all night long and then ground and the mixture is ladled into a dumpling cooker with receptacles, only thing is that this is made of stainless steel instead of bamboo. The idlis come out hot, steamed, fluffy and tasting of nothing.
You eat them with a wet curry made of drumsticks (these veggies really look like drumsticks) and medical experts now say idli is a healthy breakfast. In Dubai I remember, nutritionists would suggest a quick breakfast of idli, if you are fed up of eggs and sausages, sugary-sweet cereal or Greek yoghurt with papaya and bananas.
We now have new neighbours, a Canadian couple, and the wife says she loves idli, and they go off to the bazaar to buy the mixture that is now available ready-made in plastic pouches.
Stone-age mixi
We never took that shortcut as I remember my wife telling me in Saudi Arabia to get a idli grinder from India. The only problem was that though this was a modern invention that worked on electricity, the grinding stone was made of granite.
A freshly-ground rice mixture makes really good idlis and I didn’t care if the security chap at the airport looked at the screen and softly remarked to his colleague, “makina sejarah,” meaning in Arabic something like, “he’s got a stone-age mixi.”
If you did not wish to eat idlis with curry than you had it with something called pudi, or ‘gunpowder’. The dip looks innocent enough and seems like ground peanut with lot of coconut oil, but one lick on your tongue of the powder and Mexican jalapenos seem mild in comparison.
A Harvard professor of nutrition recently remarked that coconut oil is “pure poison” and over time it clogs up shut all your arteries that take fresh blood and oxygen to your brain and heart.
Three grandmothers were interviewed in a local newspaper here who thought the poor professor had lost his mind. “I have been using coconut oil all my life and look at my hair, it is still jet black,” she said proudly.
Coconut oil is also used for massage and my wife uses coconut oil shampoo which makes the shower area very slippery and I keep reading about how the bathroom is deadly and that is where most of the accidents happen at home.
Back to idlis and our friend’s daughter from Vancouver in Canada who went visiting a glacier, said, “We keep hearing how water is tasteless and colourless. I don’t know how to describe it, but we drank glacier water and it was there in my mouth and there was no taste at all.”
Idlis are like pure water, tasteless but very fulfilling. That is why many people have become tycoons and have made millions by serving idlis early every morning in tiny eateries in this South Indian IT hub of Bengaluru.
Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi
