Home food!

Home food.

I walk out of the restaurant, my hands redolent of my mother's sweetest hours in the kitchen.

A filled tummy, a satisfied belch, and a thrill knowing enough that your body will thank you for not abusing it once more. The coffee and the cigarette after. Ah, nothing could come close to this.

South Indian food classified itself as Divine, in all modesty. Maybe this was the repast of the gods. Maybe Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva would take a lunch break in the midst of their hectic 'universal' governance and all time would stand still as they devoured fine 'rasam' and 'sambhar' with ghee soaked rice, making savage noises whilst making short work of their 'appalams' and 'sandige', and topping it off slurping cooling curd rice, 'tair sadam' if you please. Maybe their satiated belches manifested as thunder, lightning and hurricanes.
And then, the calm. The peaceful period of time, when the universe itself takes a siesta thanks to its masters napping blissfully under the divine palm tree shading them from the universal sun while it rocks to the soft breeze of the divine wind.

Pan back to my entry into the restaurant. The background is that I hate eating South Indian food. Not because it is entirely boring or bad, but the years of torture trying to avoid my mom's long hands shoving what the world considered 'the most amazing south indian food possible' in my mouth and the countless occasions where runaway brahmin boys parading toplessly as cooks have redefined and reprogrammed my tastebuds to abhor every single delicacy of the south.

As you might be able to guess, I was dragged kicking and screaming to this restaurant. Like literally kicking and screaming. With a volley of choice epithets marking every kilometre's passing on the odometer, my friends finally managed to contain me, drive me and make me enter the restaurant.

Hmm, I will intentionally leave out the part where we got a table and the very tamilian waiter exchanged a knowing nod with my friend leaving me utterly perplexed and me doubting if this is some kinda fast one he is pulling on me.

Food. In a rapid action drill, seemingly practised over decades spent at food-servers-bootcamp, my banana leaf was filled with the same stuff I have been eating all my life. A dollop of ghee, a flurry of hands-meets-mouth around me and I knew the belting had begun.

Never had I tasted food like this before. Every morsel had something divine to it. There was something wierd happening that I couldnt put my finger on.
This question consumed me for weeks, till I decided to put another visit to the same restaurant. Today as I finish belting and accepting great gratitude from my friends who I had dragged this time around, I think I know what it is.

It was something missing actually.

My biased view of South Indian food!