JAYANT KAIKINI: The wrath of the sambaar-lover

14 February 2007 at 3:40 pm · Filed under Thought for Food

The “laidback attitude” of the Kannadiga is a familiar if patronising lament of all those who have come here from elsewhere, more so of those of our own who have seen a bit of the world. In Beantown Boomtown, the just-released anthology on Bangalore, the writer Jayant Kaikini, who  came from Bombay in 2000, does just that in a chapter aptly titled Extra Sambaar:

“The city’s ‘complacency’ and the ‘poverty of dreams’ was in particular disconcerting. Ask the Bangalorean, “I believe some spaceship  carrying aliens has landed outside town. Shall we go and watch?” or “A new dosa camp has come up in 5th Cross, let’s go and try it out!” and his option is crystal clear. “Does he serve extra sambaar? Extra chutney?” he’ll exclaim and rush towards the eating joint.

“Even if he is served a litre of sambaar with the first round, he’ll finish it with a single idli and then elbowing his way through the crowd of customers like Superman, he’ll dash to the counter for a second helping of the saucy broth. Such is the application of this sambaar-lover!”

Whether the circumspection over rumours of a spaceship landing in town isn’t logical in the original science city which is now the technology capital, is not a question that Kaikini has time for, but he quickly delves into and demolishes that other great Bangalore discovery: the darshini.

“If you rest on the granite benches of the elegantly-designed colourful bus-stops beside the road, you can watch the darshinis (veggie fast food joints) that are about to gobble up the pavements in front of them, for hours on end.

“All things in those eating places appear like miniature paintings. Round mini tables bearing mini coffee lotas and a mini washbasin—all looking like children’s toys. The families crowded there too are in a bit of jumble, just the way children are when they play family games.

“At these darshinis, you can see how a well-knit family could slip into disintegration. While the women wait in frightful joy, men bring from Kanakana-kindi like counters, plates heaped with snacks, carrying a la Lord Hanuman, the Sanjeevani mountain itself.

“No sooner do the plates arrive than the family splits itself. Its members scatter in different directions—each one goes and stands at a separate point attending her dish. Had they got a single table, they would have perhaps at least physically stood together.

“At one corner stands the head of the family, the male creature, lost in the heroic excitement of eating after severing links with this world and gazing into the space outside, somewhere beyond the buses plying on the road.

“As the daughter-in-law begins to explain what paneer is, the mother-in-law feels slighted and mutters, “I know, I know…” and turns suddenly to gaze at another disintegrated family nearby, all the while chewing her snack.

“And so, a dozen families, like pieces of a jigsaw, nod their heads and raise their brows in appreciation of the dishes and say, even before they’ve tasted it, “Hmm, good preparation. Nice, very nice!”

(Beantown Boomtown, compiled by Jayanth Kodkani and R Edwin Sudhir, published by Rupa, 2007)

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