CHENNAI: Hole-in-the-wall cafes, coffee lounges, themed restaurants... you name it and the city has it all. But a craving for traditional south Indian snacks at an affordable price is hard to satisfy. Though there are an array of sweet stalls and tiffin centers which provide south Indian snacks, the taste and the originality cannot match that of Chellamal’s Gramathu Palagaram.
As you enter the shoddy Anna Street, Shollinganallur, your eyes are drawn to a small shop with a bright name board — Gramathu Palagaram. As the sun begins to set, Chellamal starts to cook the snacks and multi-tasks by preparing the batter at the same time for the classic kuzhi paniyaram and bajji.
Tired after cooking for the day’s business, her wrinkled face brightens as she sees our familiar faces. “I was just making some masala vada...do you want some?” asks the 75-year-old.
An empty display case with a few chutney packets is all we find at the entrance…but, a peek into the small workhouse gave us a mouthwatering visual of sweet adhirsams, crunchy masala vadas, medhu vadas, sweet bonda, kuzhi paniyaram, hot bajjis in small quantity — all of it piping hot and ready to eat!
Hailing from Thuraiyur in Tiruchy district, Chellamal along with her son Jayaprakash and her sister Jayam moved to Chennai last year. “My daughter works in an IT park, and we wanted to be with her. So, we came here,” says Jayaprakash as he helps his mother.
Chellamal, who has been making these yummilicious snacks for over 40 years, is a self-taught cook. “I never learnt from my mother. I used to cook food myself, taste it and correct it. After marriage, my husband became my critic,” she smiles.
Chellamal, an expert in making adhirasam, opened her own snack shack after the December floods. Watching her neighbours suffer due to unavailability of food (during the floods) got her to cook and serve kuzhi paniyarams at her home.
Chellamal’s business got a boost from an unlikely source — a Facebook post. She has been receiving orders and customers from across the city. “One of the customers took my picture and posted it online with my phone number,” she explains.
Since then, she has been receiving several phone calls. “I even got an offer to put up my own shop in a famous amusement park! Some offers are really overwhelming…but I’m happy here. I don’t have any helpers. I do all the work; my son and my sister help me out with the cooking,” she said.
Her clientele is limited to a group of people and it comprises different kinds of people. “A lot many IT professionals love my snacks. Roughly, 80% of my clients are from the IT industry. They come here after a long day to relax,” she smiled.
As she chats, a group of young people stop by and order sweet bondas and bajjis. She prepares the order right away. “I make the snacks then and there, and I serve it hot. I believe in quality and this is cheap and best,” she points out, as she sits down to prepare another batch of snacks.
(Her snacks are priced at 3pieces/`10.For details, call 8124562069)