With the mercury levels touching an all-time high in the city, juice shops and tender coconut sellers are doing brisk business. Peak summer is also when pandals serving free buttermilk crop up all over the city. These pandals attract thousands, with people from various walks of life taking a pitstop to gulp down a few glasses of refreshing neer mor. Here’s what the neer mor scene in the city is like
East Periasamy Road, R.S. Puram
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This really popular neer mor pandal in front of Sri Jagannath Textiles enjoys a healthy patronage. It supplies the drink to individuals in and around the area, as also to the Government hospital in the city.
People in bicycles, motorcycles and cars make a beeline to this stall for a few refreshing glasses. The crowd is maximum, post-lunch. “I come to this pandal once in three weeks and have brought my two sons along as they wanted to drink something to beat the heat,” says A. Chandrasekhar, who packed some in a bottle for home.
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North Coimbatore, near Chintamani
Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Quantity served: 300 litres
This pandal comes alive in the morning with businessmen, auto drivers, students and shopkeepers flocking to grab glasses of the drink. The demand is so overwhelming that the stall runs out of buttermilk by lunch time. The neer mor here is spiked with jeera, coriander leaves and a touch of green chilli. “Anyone passing through the vicinity stops by to have a glass or two, and over a thousand people consume neer mor here,” says Amala Rajan, who serves the drink outside Shree Coimbatore Gujarati Samaj.
Olympus, Ramanathapuram
Time: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Quantity served: 80 litres
For 15 years now, this pandal has always cropped up during the summer months. It attracts people from different strata of society, who run in for a few glasses of the cooling drink before they embark on work.
“I come here a couple of times a week for the buttermilk as I am constantly on the road and need to cool off, what with the heat levels being higher than ever,” says R. Karthikeyan, a marketing executive from Sundarapuram.