Lying down on a hotel bed, on bed sheets that seem to have no particular wash cycle, staring at a yellow wall that sports a television which has over 30 kinds of Doordarshan (There’s a DD Northeast; speak of being inclusive and culturally appropriative at the same time), I begin to wonder if it’s possible to write a column on Madras, wandering through the hard-to-pronounce towns and villages of Orissa; oh, wait, it’s Odisha — our history books from school aren’t particularly fond of authenticity or on-ground research. An alarm that I have been snoozing for the last hour or so goes off — the biological kind in my stomach reminding me to have breakfast.
I stumble into a dhaba, eager to lighten my day with traditional Odia breakfast, or as they call it here, tiffin; and when I ask my waiter to surprise me, he brings to my table, what looks like a vadai with a side of coconut chutney and sambhar; when I ask him if I could get my hands on a traditional Odia meal, he nonchalantly points to the vadai and calls it bhora.
Being away from home doesn’t just give you the opportunity to explore but also experiment with food that has become a staple to your diet. Growing up in Chennai allowed me to go through various phases of vadais in my life. The post-school snack with a ‘cutting’ of tea, the early morning hard vadai that masqueraded as breakfast in the college canteen. And finally, a food trail binging the different types of vadais — from keera to medhu.
The journey didn’t end there. From recognising that the only reason Saravana Bhavan still exists despite being overpriced is its contribution to the Madras ‘tiffin’ culture, to gorging the underrated vadais at the various Murugan idlies, to finally coming to terms with the fact that the best vadais in Madras can be procured at a food joint that goes by the name — idly dosa — which is ironic given that the said food joint doesn’t necessarily specialise in food.
After a little trip down memory lane, I bring my attention back to my plate that has led Odisha to believe that the vadai is pronounced vada, and they call it bhora. A piece of cuisine has travelled all the way to the centre of India’s eastern coast and made an item of snack its own while borrowing pronunciation from a state that it borders. From the food joints of the little lanes of Chennai that has celebrated golden jubilees to dhabas that couldn’t care less about its etymology, the vadai has truly travelled places and created a new genre of cuisine — food without borders.
But what can one do with just a couple of vadais. So I ask the waiter to bring the main course as part of my traditional Odia meal. He comes back with a healthy helping of dosai, or dosa as they spell and pronounce it everywhere else around the world. I take a bite, not sure if I should bask in the underserved pride of my city and state’s cuisine, or have a sit-down with the dhaba’s chef and inform him about the origin of the vadai (I’m pretty sure everyone who serves dosais outside of Tamil Nadu knows of its origin). Either way, the Oriya touch to the traditional medhu vadai is plagiarism at its finest, especially the sweet tinge.
Bhargav Prasad
Twitter@CFLlightSabers
The writer specializes in first drafts, making observations on what makes Chennai, Madras