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Journalism of Courage
For years, jasmine white idlis and crunchy dosas strutted about in kitchens down south. They swelled with pride as their fame spread8212;to far beyond the Vindhyas8212;and grinned as rustic, boisterous northerners dug into them with spoons and fork. But fame can vanish faster than you can gobble up an idli. And as they watched in horror, the mami in Chennai put away her idli, neatly tore up a roti and dipped it into a bowl of paneer butter masala. The idlis, dosas and that platter of rice sat down and sulked but they knew they had to get real8212;the north Indian platter had arrived.
So in Kerala, thattukadas the equivalent of dhabas on the state8217;s highways and roads serve parathas and chapatis to the Malayali late into the night. Rajma is no longer balked at, men in lungis toss rumali rotis in the air, chaat parlours make brisk business and Punjabi-style chana masala sits pretty on emerald banana leaves at Chennai wedding feasts. In Tamil Nadu, the ubiquitous Udipi hotel, the Chettinad chains, the Saravana Bhavans and even the muniyandi vilas the traditional non-vegetarian hotels of the state changed their menus to accommodate the tastes of the Gujarati and Marwari community only to find Tam Brahms raised on thayir sadam polishing off alu gobi and kaju paneer.
Food, of course, is everyone8217;s biggest comfort zone. And for years, southern comfort has come wrapped in flaky home-made dosas or just rice. So they ate idlis for breakfast, rice for lunch and when they walked into a restaurant for dinner, they would stare really hard at the menu and come up with an imaginative 8216;paper dosa8217;. But the Reddys and the Iyers, they are-a-changing.
Vani Reddy, a 45-year-old entrepreneur in Chennai, says, 8220;These days, when we go out for a meal, we have butter naans with paneer butter masala. We didn8217;t do that before.8221; There you have it, the chapatification of the south, the redrawing of the Indian food map.
Sandeep Kachroo, executive chef at the Taj West End, Bangalore, sniffs the aroma of larger changes. 8220;Over the past few years, say around six years, the major investment in the IT and ITES sectors have been in the south. As a result, the demographics have changed. Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have a more global feel now. Around 60,000 migrants live in Bangalore today and between 2,000 and 4,000 north Indians come to the city every day. As a result, the local population has been exposed to a wider range of cuisine. It8217;s not surprising that naan, roti, paneer butter masala and dal have found their way to most menus.8221;
Krishna Shantakumar, general manager of a hotel chain that runs the restaurant Ebony and the cocktail lounge13th Floor at the Hotel Ivory Towers in Bangalore says, 8220;For 11 of the 16 years Ebony has been in existence, we did not have butter chicken, tandoori chicken or rogan josh on the menu. But, we found that this was consistently the most ordered items. Five years ago, we finally had to give in and include these items on the menu. If you can8217;t beat them, you better join them.8217;8217;
Wheat producers are cheering the change. 8220;Flour consumption has gone up by 20-30 per cent in the last five years. There is hardly a household that does not have a wheat-based meal each day,8221; says P.K. Ahammed, president of Kerala Roller Flour Mills. Agrees Pramod Kumar, president of the Roller Flour Mills Federation of India, 8220;The consumption of wheat is definitely going up specially in urban areas in the south.8221;
On Mount Road in Chennai, you just have to stand in front of the Punjabi Dhaba to see people vote for naans and kababs with their feet. 8220;When people here want to eat out, they head to restaurants that serve good north Indian fare,8217;8217; grins 27-year-old owner Ranpreet Singh as he watches young and old swamp the food joint on a Sunday evening.
Fifteen years ago, Ranpreet8217;s father Inderpal Singh, 54, left Durg now in Chattisgarh to start a dhaba in Vellore and discovered the recipe for success. When he saw people in the districts devouring rotis and paneer, he moved to Chennai seven years ago and opened the restaurant. Now, 50 per cent of his clientele are local Tamils. Ranpreet has opened another restaurant in T. Nagar, the commercial hub of Chennai, which is also populated by the city8217;s Brahmins. 8220;We don8217;t want to have thayir sadam curd rice all the time. We are now developing a taste for rotis,8221; agrees K. Chander, a Brahmin.
Sometimes, the taste for flour is driven by reasons of health. As in the rest of the country, waistlines are expanding and heart-rates pounding to the rhythm of 24X7 workplaces. 8220;In many cases where south Indian families have replaced rice products with wheat, the move is forced by someone being diagnosed with diabetes or cholesterol. Diets are still largely a mix of rice and wheat,8221; says Sumitra Muthayya, assistant professor for nutrition at the Institute of Population Health and Research. In Koramangala, Bangalore, Srija Nair, a 33-year-old employee with an IT major, is packing chapatis and vegetables for her seven-year-old son Rahul. Ever since her father-in-law was diagnosed with diabetes, the family has stuck to rotis for dinner. The children, Rahul and his cousin Siddharth, have made the wheat switch faster. 8220;They think it old fashioned to take rice to school,8217;8217; says Srija.
But wait. Is the roti revolution in kitchens just a matter of tastebuds? Or is this a remorphing of ethnic identity ? In Tamil Nadu, the thavani half saree and the pavada long skirt, the traditional Tamil dress for teenagers, has been replaced years ago by salwar kameez and kurtas. A few months ago, Kerala8217;s Guruvayur temple finally broke with tradition and did what would send shudders through the coastline a few years ago8212;allow women wearing the north Indian attire to enter the premises. In Bangalore, a crucible of various urban cultures, the flavour on the streets is Hindi. Himesh Reshammiya shares airwaves with A.R. Rahman while, as an online petition seeking greater representation for the local Kannada language, said two years ago, weather, traffic updates and health tips are primarily in Hindi with a sprinkling of English. Words like mehnat, kamai and duniya bounce off roads and campuses. Even road rage has a Hindi twang. At traffic lights, chances of someone asking you not to take a panga with them are almost guaranteed. If five years ago there were four single-screen theatres for Hindi films in Bangalore, there are over a dozen, across multiplexes today.
And you thought that the south was south and north was north and never the twain shall meet. Well, fusion food is also about fusing cultures. 8220;Can you imagine our good old Saravana Bhavan and Sangeetha restaurants having a Calcutta Chaat Corner? Did you know that Sangeetha serves a very popular dish, called the Chettinad Paneer Kuruma? Imagine paneer cooked with curry leaves and tamarind and eaten with rice or chapati,8221; laughs Anita Ratnam, a Chennai-based dancer.
Before north Indians begin to gloat at the last culinary bastion caving in, may we remind them that the idli-dosa invaded their homes years ago? And at every party down south, people still like to finish with curd rice and pickles. You are what you eat. Just that in this toss-up of cultures and spices, you are a bit more of everything.
8212;With inputs from Rajeev PI and Sonu Jain
