Culinary exploration in Mylapore

I had heard so much about the great traditional messes of Mylapore that were supposed to serve the yummiest South Indian Tiffin, I decided to go exploring. So last Sunday, I made my way to Mylapore. I reached there at about 8.00 am, parked my bike in the parking space in front of the temple entrance, and made my way into the temple. After all, i havent been inside one in quite some time. Might as well visit this ancient, historically significant, beautifully carved monument while I am at its doorstep. I was glad to find the temple was not crowded, and I  quickly finished my darshan and set out exploring.

The most famous mess I had heard of was the Maami mess. This is what I sought. Someone, somewhere, a long time ago had told me that it was on the same street as the temple main gate. I exited the temple, took back my shoes, and set out due right. There were houses, a gas stove repair “agency”, and some other shops. Nothing looking like a mess. Then, I saw a group of people standing in front of an ancient wall with a single open window and eating out of plastic plates. This was an eatery, surely, but not the one I was looking for. I’ll come back to this one. I walked some more, saw nothing, and decided to ask someone. A shopkeeper gave me directions, to one of the bylanes off the main road, but told me the mess was closed on sunday. An eatery being closed on sunday struck me as the height of audacity. But I did go the said loacation, and sure enough there was a backlit board sponsored by Coke saying this was the place. And it was indeed closed. And one of the local residents confirmed that they are indeed closed every sunday! I’m sure this will make an interesting case study on how to build brand, reputation, and stay solvent by keeping your hotel closed on the one day of the week that all eateries do maximum business.

Now, back to the window in the wall. (pic above) I went up to the window and peeped inside. The window had standard, old world vertical iron bars in a wooden cross frame. The bars from the lower end had been removed. It was very dark in the room that lay behind the window, and the huge man that sat on the other side blocked anylight that would otherwise make its way in.

“All over saar, poori masala only. He he he. Sunday saar” he said. The size of the man, his overall shape and his jolly demeanour seemed to embody the spirit of the Laughin Buddha.

“Okay. Poori masala” I said. When I had walked past earlier, a his customers were eating idli and dosa. Now, I was left with Hobson’s choice. He boomed something to someone inside the dark room, and in a few moments, a plastic plate with a grease paper as lining, three pooris and the standard dry potato curry masala appparated on the window sill. I craned my neck to take a better look inside, and saw there were atleast three other men inside, and huge stainless steel vessels. From what i gathered, they made the food elsewhere and brought it here for sale. The poori masala was good, and cost only Rs 21. There was a vessel with chutney for the idlis and dosas. I tasted some, and it was good. Another man walked up, asked what was available, and was given the same Hobson’s choice. He said okay, and wanted only two pooris. “Illa Saar, three pooris. Minimum three pooris only saar.” replied the large man behind the window. Now that he was at the end of his business day, maybe he did not want to upset some carefully done calculations as to how many pooris he could sell. He would not give less that three, but you could always ask for four (Rs 28). A glass of water was kept ready at the window, and dumped the paper lining into the blue bin and washed my hands, letting the water drip into it. By the time i had finished, he had served one more customer, and turned away another, saying it was all over. I came back to take this photo later. A better camera than that on my phone, and i think i have a prize winner in a photography contest.

 

I did another round of the area, looking for someplace to eat some more. And sure enough, there was Mylai Sree Karpagambal Mess, appropriately named after godess Karpagam, an avtaar of Parvati. This one was on East Mada Street, almost opposite the Bhavan’s auditorium. It looked like the interiors had gotten a fresh coat of paint, contemporary furniture, and good lighting. There was also an AC room, and the menu board listed the AC and non AC rates for every dish. But if the man sitting at the counter was anything to go by, plus framed b/w photos of some people with small bulbs underneath them, this place was two hundred years old. I asked for Idli, and the waiter said the new batch would take ten minutes. So I settled for dosa, vada and filter coffee. The food was delicious, and the filter coffee was at it should be. This was tiffin heaven. There were multi containers with chutneys, and sambar, and each was really good. And it cost me just Rs 70. The ancient man at the counter took the payment. I tried to have a conversation with him, but the ol boy was having trouble with his hearing. And thus, fortified with three pooris, he he, dosa, vada and good filter coffee, i set out to face the day.

Mylai Sree Karpagambal Mess

 

On F1 in India

(I wrote all this down the Sunday before the F1. The last few lines I added today)
The whole debate on F1 being sport, entertainment or elitist pastime is so ridiculous it unfunny. But maybe its unfunny because there is too much funny money thats at stake. By the same standards that IPL is a sport, this one is too. There are a fixed teams of people who play according to a set of rules, to maximise a particular result. The winners get prizes; there are people who pay to watch, and the result, at least technically, is dependent on one team outperforming the others.

Of course, like IPL, there are too many businessmen who are “passionate about the sport” and have put in a lot of money. Of course, everyone who has access to a TV channel microphone or newspaper blog/columns has an opinion. (any spacefiller set of words will do. Orinigality ore relevance be damned). The TV rights and the marketign rights are a killer, and there are pretty blonde women in skimpy clothes who will be involved with the whole circus.

But does that meet Indian standards of sport?

For one, there is no committee under the Ministry of Sport (or is it HR ministry?..well.. whatever), you don’t get grace marks in standard 10 exams for motorsport, and there is no reservation in the Indian Railways or other sarkari bodies for racing excellence. And from what I heard, Suresh Kalmadi’s family members have a stake in all the Indian F1 circuit and promotions and everything. Did they ever put in their money into hockey teams or firms that make boxing gloves or anything? Not that I know of. And the Indian junta actually watch F1 on TV. They recognise the faces of Vettel and Button and even Eccleston. Outside of Cricket, they only sportsperson that most people can recognise is Sania Mirza. Speaking of cricket, in India, its not a sport. Its a religion. So the criteria listed above need not apply.

Maybe, like Cricket, not being a sport is a good thing here. In cricket, like it should be in F1, the interests of all the parties concerned are transparent: Money. Megamoney. In millions of US$. Managing a team, getting star players and gettign good playing facilities needs money. But if there is megabuck in crores to be earned from a well organised, well played event, investing the lakhs that are needed for proper facilities and decent player fees is sound business sense. Else, you have to float tenders and buy treadmills at ten times the cost, to get a decent ROI and effort. Or you need to be bribed into selecting incompetents with ministerial recommendations. But where the money is big, you invest. And expect that the investment function efficiently for returns. Else, whatever money and effort you put in is not investment, its an expense. And expenses are what you either avoid, or inflate, or leverage for personal gain. In India, sport is an expense.

And of course, F1, unlike even cricket, is totally unaccessible. Any five year old can play cricket in any convenient street corner. And enough five year olds actually play well enough to make their way from poverty and no facilities to the Indian test cap. This happens in other sports also, albeit to different levels of access. Sports like football and hockey, which require very little equipment, are easier to get into. Somethign as costly as shooting requires an industrialist father. But you get the point. Not so in F1. Even getting into the lesser leagues of motorsport is extremely expensive. So is watching the race. Tickets are coveted, prices are high, and will continue to be high. And since the price is high, there are a lot of add ons like the boxes and the food and the hostessess and access to team meetings that make it all the more coveted. The aam janta will have to be content with watching IPL, regular cricket and F1 on TV. The middle class junta can, with a bit of luck, actually afford to buy cricket match tickets. Tickets to F1 cost as much as a 2D/3N family vacation to Munnar. Moreover, F1 will always have a slightly elitis following, since a major part of the enjoyment comes from reading about the teams, strategies, races, technology and a lot more on a continuous basis. This bit of dedicated followup is an elitist pastime. The cricket elitist debate, discuss and ponder over everything from Bradman to moisture on the pitch to the exact muscle that is strained by Rotator Cuff injuries. The rest of the worshippers of cricket dont generally go beyond “arre Yuvraj ne kyaa mast six maara…seedha stadium ke baahar gaya!!”. They just might find noisy cars going round and round a tad boring.

Speaking of the elite, can India afford to host such a huge track on so much of real estate for such a small period of active utilization? And all this for the entertainment of the elite? Important questions that require a lot of debate. But they all arise from having skewed policy and too much corruption in the first place. Any projec that requires land, be it an airport, racetrack, IIT campus or housing complex, has to buy the land from someone. That somones are usually a bunch of farmers. They, like most rational human beings, are ready to sell if the price is right. But the price is never right because everyone is trying to scam them. Not anyone’s fault. As for utilization, there will invariably be uses found for this piece of land. There will be political gatherings, award ceremonies, rock concerts, film shoots and motor races. At least, an F1 track will be more useful than shopping malls around the Taj Mahal.

And as if to settle the matter conclusively, the Sports Minster was not invited to the inaguration. Befittingly, he was inagurating a new track at P.T. Usha’s athletics school. Poetic, eh?