Requiem for a thali

Requiem for a thali
photograph from http://www.sallys-place.com/food/ethnic_cusine/india.htm

A gleaming steel plate in which sit several equally radiant katoris, all empty, beaming with anticipation. You give a katori an impatient little twirl and wait, salivating gently. Suddenly, the kitchen door swings open and heralded by a drum roll of clattering spoons and pans, the show begins. First the band members walk in – the pickles, the pappadums, the chutneys, the kachchumbers, sometimes even a tiny, sparkling mound of salt. As they settle down and tune your taste buds, the supporting cast takes its place. A giggling rasam covered with little sequins of oil next to a serene, buttery moong dal. A palely elegant cauliflower poriyal dressed in frothy frills of coriander-‘n-coconut sneers at a fat, untidy, chortling aloo bhaji. A smooth-limbed kadhi undulates in lemony-golden swirls, tantalizingly veiled in transparent chiffons of steam, watched by a cool, still, white lake of curd. A charming kheer with a flawless pista-and-cream complexion smiles sweetly at a clownish bonda rolling across the steel floor to where several hot, perky pakodas chatter and vie for a dip in the refreshing green of the mint chutney. And finally, when everything’s in its place and the aromas apsaras have taunted and tickled your nose till you can’t bear it anymore, the star cast enters. Three pompously puffed-up pooris drop from the sky. Plop! They sizzle their opening lines, you gingerly poke their bellies and as a gust of hot air whooshes out, a delicious vaudeville begins……
To me, the thali epitomizes the Indian spirit. Every possible taste and flavour is welcome and there’s room for everyone in that happy circle. The sweet and the spicy, the juicily plump and the wafer thin, the lightly steamed and deeply fried, the fluffy and the crisp, things that make your taste buds squirm and tingle with delight, things that wash over them like a gentle lullaby. A dollop of this, a splash of that, things to dip into and to scoop out, things to slurp and crunch, things to fill the belly and uplift the soul. The thali is the world’s purest democracy where the first helping is the election campaigning where you give all a fair tasting and the second helping is when you cast your vote. Where you eat not in a boring straight line like the West does, going from soup to main course to dessert, but like the world, you go round and round, revisiting, reliving, reveling till every sense is sated and you’re in bliss. Which is when you lie back and let a gentle, happy little burp escape your lips, just loud enough for the gods to hear your paean of gratitude.
Sadly the thali is a dying breed in Mumbai, as endangered a species as the Bengal tiger. Oh there are places where you’ll find its pure-ghee, Roman orgy “deluxe” cousin that costs upwards of Rs.150 a pop and needs you to starve for at least 2 days to get past the farsan stage. But the plain simple South Indian fare, once available in almost every Udipi restaurant in the city is now almost extinct. And if you do find it, it’ll often be hideously bastardized, most of the items in it having crawled out of the horrible, greasy red slops, euphemistically called “Punjabi Items”, that feature on the a la carte menu. A few brave survivors still persist, like the Udipi Shri Krishna Boarding in Matunga that has served thalis of unwavering excellence since 1946, but for the rest……
Once upon a time, the Udipi restaurant was the affordable, wholesome option for genuine South Indian food. Not any more. Today, most of them offer a ghastly gallimaufry (yes, there’s such a word and it means hodgepodge!)of cuisine, as gaudy an assault on the taste buds as the décor is on the eyes. So there’s a Jain in the pizza, cheese in the uttapam, mushrooms in the dosa and the tomato omelet is not made with egg. The sambar is sweet, the sandwich is Russian, the paneer Schzewan and vegetables are anything from Peshawari to milijuli. There’s kadai, tawa, handi and matka, but nowhere in this noisy “gad bud” (yes, there’s actually a dessert by that name!) will you find amma’s thali. The thali is dead. Long live the thali!

gobi manchuri

GOBI MANCHURI

Photo: http://www.geetesh.com/coorgmysore/pages/08.html

Forget Mysore pak. Forget Mysore masala dosa (if such a thing ever existed.) Even forget the Mysore palace. It’s Mysore only if it’s gobi manchoori. (Or manchuri, as some would have it). Sizzling like Helen, glistening brown like Silk Smita’s thighs and as masaledaar as a David Dhawan film, it’s the hottest craze in town. Teenagers swear by it, no college campus is complete without it (one young lad told me that it’s the best place to meet babes who seem to have a special affection for it), recipes for it are closely guarded state secrets and the other day my maid walloped it with a gusto that she normally reserves for ragi mudde and avrekai!
So what exactly is gobi manchuri? Would cauliflower have anything to do with it? Maybe. Is it something concocted by a Chinese monk to slay the mighty Mahishasoora? Could be. A union of the soya bean and the Bedige chili so incendiary that it set the Cauvery on fire? Perhaps. A favourite concubine of Genghis Khan? Who knows? The pedestrian definition will tell you it’s bite-sized florets of cauliflower dipped in a batter of maida and corn flour (or variations thereof), deep fried and then floated into a kind of a sauce/gravy made by frying onions, various little bits of greenery (anything from capsicum to green chili, I suspect) and swirled into a conspiracy by the Gang of Four – the Messrs. Soya, Vinegar, Chili and Tomato sauces. As the thick vicious brown gook begins to spits and seethe in time to the drip-drip-drip of your salivary glands, nameless brown, red and yellow powders (depending on how fiendish you like your tipple) are sprinkled in and stirred. An instant before the gobi can turn soggi, a generous handful of chopped dhania and to the triumphant clang of ladle to wok, your gobi manchuri is ready. What, you ask, disappointed, just another snack?
Ah, but you obviously didn’t ask a true Mysorean. If you had, you’d have been told that gobi manchuri is a way of being, a rite of passage, an attitude. If in Mumbai it’s time pass, in Mysore, it’s gobi manchuri. When a Mysorean’s dil mange more, it’s only for "gobi" (as it is fondly called). It is fusion food for the soul, banishes boredom, cures lassitude and a constant diet of it is known to toughen your innards to withstand the most blistering chili and the most virulent bacteria.
No one knows for sure but I’m told by Mr. Venkaatess of Imperial Chef (supposed to be one of the best gobi manchuri joints in the city) that the Kings Court Hotel introduced it to Mysore in 1995. How it managed to leap off the fancy-pants restaurant table and strut its stuff at every single street corner and market square remains a mystery but I first noticed it about three years ago when a cart selling it was edging out the usual bhelpuri-wallah near my house. At the time I’d sniggered, scoffing at the very thought of the refined Mysorean taste buds groomed on generations of bisi bele huli anna stooping to defile itself on such phoren slops.
Needless to say, I’ve had to eat my sniggers and was forced to cut my gobi manchuri milk teeth a few days ago while researching this piece. So, did the earth move for me? Let me put like this. It brought to mind the name of a rather popular dessert found in the better Udipi joints in Mumbai. Which said it all. Gadbad. I know I risk getting drummed out of my hometown, so let me hastily make amends by telling you that Mysore’s surrender to the invasion of the “gobi” is unconditional. Apart from the fact that no restaurant worth its salt-‘n-pepper will leave it out of its menu, my estimate is that there must be at least about 300-400 street-side carts across the city dedicated only to gobi manchuri. (You can also eat it with “Veg. Fride Rice” and “Veg. Noodles” but the connoisseurs prefer it on the rocks.) A full plate goes for Rs. 10 a pop, but like the chhota peg, the regulars prefer to go “by two”. Like the stars, the gobi carts come out at about 5.30 every evening, staying on till 10 and averaging about 50-60 plates on good day.
So what’s the magic of the “gobi”? I tried to figure it out but like Laloo’s aloo, no one really knows. But I suspect it’s a hit because it’s hot, it’s cheap, it speaks in a chat-pata street tongue and it’s instant (including in the way it kick starts your taste buds!). What more paisa-wasool could one ask for?
Finally, a word about the name. Gobi manchoori. The first part is easy enough and it’s unanimous that it means “cauliflower.” It’s the manchoori (or manchuri) that poses the 64-gobi question. The more pretentious joints tend to call it Gobi Manchurian or even –shudder! - Cauliflower Manchurian. So would that point to a Chinese ancestry? Maybe is one answer. A shrug of the shoulder implying who cares, just shut up and eat it is the most common. But the one that I found the most satisfactory came from - who else, but that reputed exponent of the gobi, Mr Venkatess. It’s really quite simple, he says. “Manchoori” (you don’t have the heart to interrupt and remind him that his menu says Manchurian) means that which a “Man” can eat with a “chhuri” (or “choori” which means anything used to spear a morsel – i.e. fork/knife etc.) So Man+choori = Manchoori. I gasped at the pure poetry and the irrefutable logic of that explanation. And dreamily walked out of the Imperial Chef, remembering when a crispy bit of fried gobi splendiferously dressed up in a happy khichdi of whatnots introduced me to a place called Mysore!