Sunday, January 13, 2008

Jan 8-12: The story till 12th! (part 7 of 8)

The breakfast scene is changing slightly. Added to the menu now is
'poha' (beaten rice/avalakki). Poha is kept hot all day by keeping a
vessel with hot water right underneath the vessel containing poha. The
water is heated as needed. Also, masale-kadle (read that in kannada.
It's masala coated peanuts) has made an appearence is stores. People
like to munch on papad all day, it looks like. Large rice papads sell
for 1 rupee. Also on the menu is a longish variant of the papad, the
papdi. Papdi is also slightly thicker. Most of the time, the hotels in
the small towns don't serve anything other than snacks. So for
lunch/dinner, the only option is to visit a dhaba outside any town.

Coming back, I've had a gala time at Swagath's house. Feasting on
proper south indian food, you see! Washed all clothes too. Lots of
chit chat. All along, I had been ignorant of the fact that they belong
to the same community as me. Wondering why caste/community should
matter to an atheist ? Our community, the Havyaka Brahmins, speaks
another dialect of kannada called 'havyaka'. There are actually two
variants of Havyaka, with one being spoken in Uttara Kannada district
of Karnataka, and the other used by people in the Dakshina Kannada
district of Karnataka(my father's place) and Kasaragod district of
Kerala (my mother's place). So, us belonging to the same community
means only one thing: one more language to talk in!

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