It was that kind of weather — when the ground is still wet, clouds hang low, and a bracingly cool breeze blows. The kind of weather that makes you want to play songs on the radio and sends your feet scurrying for a steaming cup of something and a fried platter of anything!
My feet found their way to the South Boulevard, where the road skirts the Muslim Quarter with its sprawling mosques and quiet lanes lined with bright-roofed houses. Apparently I wasn’t alone in giving in to my rain-fuelled appetite. The plastic stools, scattered around a bright blue vendor’s cart just opposite the Railway Station, were all taken. “One soup and two samosas,” I requested, egged on by the whiff of pepper and sizzle of frying. The cart was manned by seven men, each engaged briskly in his task.
While the one who looked to be in-charge gave out pink and blue tokens, an older man separated the chapatti-like discs of flour, another quickly conjured a neatly folded triangle wrapped around a filling of minced meat, a young man dipped them in spitting oil, drained them on the wok’s rim and passed them on for packing.
Meanwhile, a man in a peaked cap near me throws a fistful of coriander in a pot simmering on a burner and ladles out a spoonful into a bowl. Before handing it to me, he strews them with garnish. ‘These are spring onions, sautéed in ghee,” he says as I look up. The hot soup, with steam still rising off it and a leg of mutton protruding out, burns a warm path down my throat. The pepper eclipses every other spice, but the crunch of caramelized onions makes the long walk worth it.
I turn to the samosas in hand to find them surprisingly non-greasy. The edges are flaky but not overtly crunchy. The centre is softly stretched over delicately spiced minced lamb packed in with shredded onions. As I try to savour the sharp note of ginger a little longer, I find the conversation under the blue tarpaulin has reached a contented lull.
Next to me, Nisha, a first-timer, vows it must be the price — a steal given the current cost of mutton — that draws in the crowd. But Manoj, a regular, believes it is the consistency in taste that has ensured the bhai kadai a place on international television shows. “I have been coming here since my days as a student,” says Manoj, now employed in the education department. “Then it was a tiny stall on Mullah Street, but the incredible taste has remained the same, week after week.”
“Maybe it is because neither the owner nor the cooks have changed,” explains Nizamuddin, the man at the helm. How long have they been around? “I remember it was the year that Indira Gandhi died,” he says, trying to add up. “Thirty years,” he smiles. “My father Hadar Hasan was the one who started it. We used to arrange samosas on plates on the beach.”
“Our father was one of those cooks who could get the proportion of all the ingredients right, even with his eyes closed,” says older brother Muhammed Yasin. “He worked as a cook in Singapore, Thailand and Brunei before returning to Pondicherry.” It was Nizam, determined to give them a USP, who picked and perfected the two dishes the stall offers today.
Yet it is brother Yasin’s deft hands that give the samosa two of its most desirable traits: it absorbs little oil and not a mite spills out. “The amount of oil that seeps in and the spillage depends on the folding technique. I was taught this by an old vendor in my youth.”
That they are sticklers for hygiene is another attraction for high-profile clientele like actors, ministers and businessmen, says Jafar, one of the cooks. “Pondicherrians living in France tell us their annual trip is incomplete without coming here. Some ask for samosas to be packed for the flight back to Paris,” he beams.
Despite the roaring business, Nizam has no plans to set up a shop. “My customers insist I don’t change. There are many restaurants in the city but my thalluvandi is where they come to relax, enjoy the breeze and eat.” From selling sundal on the beach as a school drop-out to help his father to being able to afford a good education and lifestyle for his children, the street-side samosa has changed Nizam’s fortunes. “Like A.R. Rahman said, ‘Ella puhazhum iraivanukke.’ We are blessed; people come to us hungry and it is a joy to be able to feed them.” The transistor plays another durgah song, as Nizam greets the next customer – the samosas fresh out of the pan, pile on.
( A bowl of mutton leg soup costs Rs. 20 and a lamb samosa, Rs. 15 on the cart at Subbiah Salai aka the South Boulevard anytime from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. )
