My First Idly

April-19-2012
I am in the land of Idlys, the all-time favorite of my family and myself. I have a natural disharmony with its dictionary meaning, so I prefer to avoid the adverbial injustice and go with the idyllic Idlys. I am animated at my new workplace, interacting effortlessly convincingly with my new colleagues (completely unaware of the cost-benefit analysis of my efforts and coiling convictions). I am happy, charged and excited that I am at a place where people resemble amazingly with my own internal identity – they like dressing in lengthy edged linens, tuck a fresh flower string in their neat pleats every day, eat healthy, work hard and walk with confidence, once put that devout sign on their forehead that possibly says they are the most intelligent people on this part of the earth, I now share with them and increasingly getting fonder of. I wouldn’t be doing the intelligence math here, leaving it to the readers.

I was taking paces with my ill laptop to the IT room on my second day of acquiring a business laptop which was found virus infected and I had just about lost the three paged article I wrote on the previous day about what makes my company (where this is my 7^rd day) ‘(One of) the best place to work for’.

The IT administrator declared it would take 4 hours to backup and reformat, while I silently prayed for my essay to make it to the last boat. I took a deep breath and walked back to my desk where a colleague of mine was remarkably waiting for me to go for lunch, it was surprising because people don’t usually and easily invite you for lunch here, that too when it’s just the 7^th day for a newbie in Chennai, who hasn’t been smart enough to pick up the language ‘that’ fast. 

We took the elevator to the cafeteria in 6^th floor and she asked me on our way if I have already moved to a house and have appointed a cook to help me. I wasn’t surprised with the question but I kind of rushed to say No, I prefer cooking. Surprise popped to the other end this time and without delay reflected on my eyes when she quizzed with the skewed eyebrows why? She elaborated…..why do you want to cook when you stay alone? Whoop! I heard myself saying because ‘I do eat….!’ Her suggestion was not hard to understand yet, she wanted to say I should rather appoint a kitchen help or pick/order my food back to home. While I tried to tell her how easy and hands-on it could be to cook your own food, we landed in a big cafe where a great spread of North and South Indian, some western-fusion-sorts and a range of other quick takes were lined up. Although we had headed together to this point I suddenly realized we crisscrossed our paths when I took my way to South Indian counter and she chose to go for North Indian combo. In a knits of oddity I fetched my grand plate (thaali) with 10 partitions, both heart and healthfully filled with about 15 courses of meals. 

Athletically balancing my body with thaali, I walked to join her back on the table she had already secured for us. I glanced around, it was a great hall which now looked like a marriage hall to me, with colorful decors and skillful arrangements filled with aroma of great south Indian spices. As both of us looked at each other’s plates, there was an audible difference between what was reeling in our minds, while I was scanning to know how does the north Indian thaali look like in a hard core south urban, she was wondering what made me choose rice and sambar when I had a ready option of chapatis. As I could read her mind, I quickly replied her unvoiced question - I like the combination sambar, rice and papad.

She looked satisfied with my answer and suggested I should rather try the morning breakfast in the same cafe where they serve range of south Indian dishes, dosa, Idly vada, utthapam, pongal and so on….with sambar and chutney in unlimited supply! My eyes were shinning in exhilaration as I visualized the list, nearly all of them are magnificent take-away Sunday breakfasts in the part of India I come from. I told her I have always fancied making round and fluffy Idlys and crispy dosas. She laughed out loud to attract the attention of fellow guzzlers and I for some reason liked it, she said it’s easy like cakewalk, and although I had never done a cakewalk I was much excited to know how to mix, grind, ferment and shape them!

She told me the oval-shaped idly rice and white lentil in 4:1is the key, that should be soaked in water for about 4 hours, not necessarily overnight and much excitingly I can grind it using my own domestic grinder, leave it for fermentation overnight and use it for >2 days!  I felt like having found a viable formula to success and couldn’t wait longer to buy the boiled rice and conduct a new experiment in my own busy lab. 

Few weeks later I shifted to my small rented house in Chennai and then came the most awaited weekend. Suiting to the place and people I was a thrusting worshipper of perfection by then, I did everything possible to make it soft, fluffy, round and high.

My first Idly was boiling high…..

When I took off the lid my excitement was beyond cloud 9, euphoric me rushed to the closest mirror to see how does the image of self-made round Idlys look.…with the white coconut chutney? No, with my shinning white grin!  

 I had thoroughly enjoyed the success of my first Idly but just couldn’t take time to write about it. An year later, when I decided to come out of that guilt today, it took me another session – yes of idly making, so I may re-live the experience to be able to write with precision. As I put my best effort to do that, an unavoidably imminent difference emerged from the mold, the idly was flat this time…

To know why the otherwise round world, turned-out flat this time, wait for my next post….

BTW, my computer got virus-free that evening and I had to rewrite my essay, conversely at the time of writing this post I have this urgent thought of taking a permanent backup of all my data/write-ups, before surrendering my laptop to the IT department of ‘(One of) the best place to work for’.