Sunday, April 15, 2012

Iniya Puthandu Nalvazhthukkal

For my fellow non-tamil speaking friends, that meant Happy New Year. The deal is that my people celebrate the new year in April, and sadly enough its not like they get sloshed with flaming tequila shots after midnight or something, a Tamil New Year is a very sombre and drab affair - one that I have had to painfully endure for the best part of 22 years now. First things first I have to clarify that I am a PROUD tamilian -  sure there are some parts of my custom that even I simply find deluded but if there's one thing that pisses me off the most with my people are the way we celebrate our festivals. On an average we have a whole horde of pointless festivals (the flipside of having so many deities and gods), and an orthodox family does the same exact thing for every festival. Having lived in Bombay for almost 15 years now, there is no reason to go over board for any festival, so sweets and fried items like chukli's and murukku's go out of the window. The best thing mom does is make a simple Paal Paayasam (Kheer) and the dreaded Sambhar with some hideous curry. Now lets for argument sake assume that I still like Veg food and vegetables. Of all the possible veggies, the only ones that I ever liked where Beetroot, Gobi and Bhendi. I think thats a fairly common list considering Aloo is just okay and stuff like Cabbage, Baigan, Raddish etc are a strong NO.

That's where my problem starts. Sambhar is a mixture of 2 of my least favorite things - daal and Raddish. To add to that if you make a Cabbage curry, then New Year or not, I will not eat it. And this phenomenon is applicable only for us South Indians who are forced to live a double-life because our parents are staunch Vegen's, so whilst they think that you are losing your appetite because you hardly eat at home, little do they know that we actually have 2 lunches, 2 dinners and 2 of everything else because we simply can't go back to the life of eating just Thair Sadam with Beans curry. So this post is dedicated to every South Indian who suffers my plight of not getting non veg at home. While our friends complain about how they have to eat Ghar Ka Khana - their Ghar Ka Khana is still cool stuff like Butter Chicken and Fish Curry n what not. Only we have to suffer the plight of day before yesterday's Daal with chapati and then leave the house to go gobble down an entire Sausage and Salami Sizzler only to go back home and eat a nice big helping of Curd Rice (True Story).

And its at times as dire as these do you really get to appreciate the awesomeness of the fast food industry. I mean fine dining is a delightful experience in itself, but there's something about eating dirt cheap food at your everyday run of the mill restaurants that's just a very liberating experience in itself. So from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU. Thank You Sub of the Day, Thank you KFC Zinger, Thank You Hot Wings, Thank You Bhurji Pav, Thank You K3 and your awesome chats n Vadapavs, Thank You Chilly Chicken at Gall, Thank You Butter Chicken at Daff, Thank You Butter Chicken with Pawan, Thank You Chicken Tandoori full at Charpai, Thank You ridiculously cheap sizzler at Pop Tates, Thank You McDonald's Breakfast Menu, Thank You McDonalds for your awesome Spicy Range and those Shake Shake Fries, Thank You Apple Chicken, Thank You 5 Spice for everything and last but by no means the least THANK YOU KALLURI. My fellow south indian brother, who has never once cried or complained about going and eating non veg with me, no matter what time of the day it is. This very nice (fat) man is very good friend to have, not only does he know very good cheap places to eat, but now he also gets us corporate discounts and Snapdeal offers.

You'll will obviously find this post very random and meaningless but it had to be done. I spent so much of my money eating with Kalluri and my bwouys as he would say, and I think I owe it to all of them and all these wonderful eating oppurutunities in Powai thanks to whom poor Southy bwouys like us don't have to go hungry. So happy New Year Kalluri, here's hoping we can keep hogging for many more years to come.
PS: Salle Mote ek baar tho Apple Chicken ka last piece mereko khane dey!!! Haha just kiddin man, Cheers!

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