I am a retired engineer, 84-plus years old, a true Indian! Now, what does a true Indian eat? That is a tricky question.
In 1939 I started my schooling in The High School at Srirangam in Tamil Nadu. My elder sister and I had thayir sadam (curd rice) with some very spicy pickle for lunch. We did not know of any other food then. And we loved it. In later years when I studied in Pune and then in Kolkata, I think I relied on puri-sabji. You polish it up in a jiffy so you can join your friends playing!
By 1953, college days had arrived. Pilani was very different in our days. Students from the South are rice-eaters, but we had only roti and this did not go down well with us ‘southies’! We were miserable and used to go in search of anything to eat or munch. And in the market area, we discovered two ‘dhabas’ and all the ‘southies’ became patrons of ‘Guptaji’. It was the one place where we got very good dosa, idli and vada! All these were served piping hot with delicious sambar. And for me, when I decided to go for omelettes, nothing else mattered.
Guptaji was a very easy-going and friendly type of person who used to call us ‘ beta ’, and his son was our classmate! Normally we used to settle our bills when we received money from home and even if he is not paid then, he never asked for settlement! I was touched when before leaving Pilani, I went to settle my bills and take leave of him, he actually waived the payment and tore up the paper chits where we used to jot down whatever we ate and almost tearfully blessed us and bid us goodbye!
Something about the mess at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani deserves to be mentioned. We used to be given a large glass of some liquid refreshment — lukewarm at best — late in the evening. Now we were never too sure what it was, shikanji (lime juice) or chai (tea). Our head cook was very diplomatic. He said, “ aachha to hain naa? Tumko jo pasand hai wohe samajke peelo ” (as long as you like it, think it is lime juice or tea and drink it.) To date, we don’t know what it was!
The days I spent in Pilani taught me to eat and survive wherever we went. When I went to Mumbai this principle helped me survive. I survived on dosa and pav bhaji for both breakfast and dinner. It is not that other items were not there; but because you are busy doing — nothing important.
Life went on. In 1978 I went to Zambia. That was a very different kind of place. The local people were almost all beef-eaters and we were very strict vegetarians. It was very difficult to get vegetarian food in any hotel.
So even when my family went home to India, I found it tough to live on bread, ice cream and cakes! I supplemented these with egg. One becomes inventive to bring up some different palatable dish every day.
During this period I had very tasty Gujarati and south Indian food from friends. Then it was Shimla. The best food we have ever had was at the Shimla railway station in July 1980, all of 38 years ago. We still talk about it!
During the past 20 years, I have tasted rava dosa in the original form and this made me a rava dosa-lover.
Now I go about tasting the delicious dosa at different places and I have found that the taste did not vary much. On the whole the rava dosa is still the most likeable snack — where it is available.
With such varied experience in eating that I have had, you may mistake me for a gourmet. I am happy to say that in almost every hotel they serve quality rava dosa.
I always say that a good rava dosa has more holes than dosa in it!
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