As a die-hard fan of our leader, I can’t say, surprising though it may seem, that I’m too happy with the recent developments in the southern town of Salem. I speak, of course, of the newly-introduced ‘Modi Idli ’, the initiative of a fellow PM-admirer.
I have my reasons. Foremost is the fact that it is a tad disrespectful to our leader. I think no one, not even our leader himself , refers to our leader by just his surname. The correct way to address him is, has been, and will always be Modi ji . So, I most humbly request the makers to change the name of the idli to ‘Modi ji Id li ’.
I know that this alteration somewhat spoils the mellifluous nature of the two rhyming, two-syllabled words ‘Mo-Di’ and ‘Id-li’ that sit so neatly together. But I have a solution for that. Add a ‘ ji’ to the ‘ idli ’ for balance. Mod jiIdliji . You can’t deny it has a certain ring to it.
Next, kindly standardise the spelling of idli . In several of your posters and publicity material, the dish has been spelt ‘idly’. That is somewhat blasphemous if you ask me. Modi ji works 18 hours a day. What do you mean Modi Idly? Our leader is never idle.
Thirdly, with some research, I have come across this alarming historical fact. According to two well-known food historians, the idli , far from being a South Indian culinary innovation (which is bad enough in itself) came to our ancient land either from Indonesia or from the Arab traders of yore. You see where I’m going with this? I don’t need to elaborate on Indonesia. But imagine if the idli came from Arab traders. That means it would have come to Kerala first. Do we want to be associated with such a dish then?
I think we should find a more pristine dish, a delicacy that has its origins right here, in our ancient, beautiful, all-knowing, Hindi-speaking land, if you ask me. Like, say, poha , for instance. Imagine Modi jiPohaji . All over Tamil Nadu. Now that would be good.
Except for a couple of tiny glitches. One is that the stubborn Tamils, somewhat lacking in good taste, may not take to poha . Two, ‘ poha ’ doesn’t exactly rhyme with our leader’s name. Fear not, I might have a solution for that, too. Just make idli -shaped poha . And call it Modi jiIdliji *. And as a footnote, add ‘*by idli we mean poha ’ in fine print on all the publicity material. South Indians will be none the wiser. Lol!
I hear that the makers of this dish have assured the public that they would be cooked with pure and clean water and that their unit would be making 1,800 idlis every six seconds.
A couple of suggestions here. Use water from our sacred Ganga. Just imagine how that would go with our devoted public. As our river-linking is already happening on a war footing, I’m sure that wouldn’t be too difficult. Otherwise, we could have a bullet train introduced in TN exclusively to bring the required water.
Secondly, instead of publicising it as 1,800 idlis for every six seconds, say you will be providing over 15 crore idlis per annum. See how impressive that sounds. Beats the raita out of the six lakh biryanis ordered on Swiggy last year.
I see only one problem, though: Ms Kangana Ranaut. Kanganaji is the biggest fan of our leader. But she is currently playing Puratchi Thalaivi in an upcoming biopic. We need to get some clarification from her about who her vote goes to: Modi Idli or Amma Idli ?
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a satirist. He has written four books and edited an anthology.
