Occupation: Selling bajjis and chaats
The city is almost like a second home for me. For the last seven years, I have been coming here during the Onam season. For over a week, I set up my stall at Kanakakunnu, treating people to a variety of bajjis and chaats.
I belong to Kannur, but I keep travelling for most of the year. In the capital city, besides Onam celebrations, I have been a regular at book festivals, fairs and exhibitions organised by private organisations.
In addition to the common chilli bajji, I also make bajjis of cauliflower, vazhakka (raw banana and potato. We also make vegetable pav bhaji, bhel puri, dahi puri, sev puri, masala puri, and pani puri here. I learnt it all from my father, Khader.
He was called ‘Exhibition’ Khader because he used to be a regular feature at most of the exhibitions in Kerala and outside the state. He used to run stalls in Bangalore, Mysore and Hyderabad, selling bajjis and chaats. After he passed away, I took over the business. We had to wind up the business outside the state and now I stick to different places in Kerala.
What is special about the bajjis I make? For starters, I use good quality chick pea flour (besan). There are many stalls that use peas flour because it is cheap. But we don’t use it since it is not as tasty as besan.
For the bajjis, we mix the flour with asafoetida, ayamodakam and salt. We don’t use chilli powder to make it spicy. Instead, we make a spicy chutney with tomato, ginger, garlic, tamarind, chilli powder, coriander powder, curry leaves, pudina leaves, coriander leaves and salt that goes well with the bajjis.
These days, cauliflower is a huge favourite among the festival crowd. The flour is a mix of rice powder, besan, meat masala, Kashmiri chilli powder and salt.
I have around 15 employees to help me. The puris and samosas are made on the exhibition ground itself. The samosa is the typical North Indian variety, with potato masala as the filling.
I entered the field in 1994 during the Thrissur Pooram season. It feels great to have garnered a regular clientele. I strongly believe that it has much to do with the quality of the products we make.
(A weekly column on men and women who make Thiruvananthapuram what it is)
