Manam Vanam is about collective hope, collective wisdom and collective excellence. It's a celebration of us - this community we've gathered around PODI life - our stories, our nostalgia and our lives.
Alak Nanda from Podilife very kindly invited me to share a nostalgic memory of mine involving dosa, in the form of an illustration and a short write-up.
As a 6 year old in Madurai, Tamilnadu, (home to the very famous Meenakshi temple and the Murugan idli kadai) I was in one of the hotspots of Tamil culture and food. It was the first city in Tamil Nadu that I actually lived in. I didn’t know tamil or anything much about the tamil culture up until then. Madurai was my first taste, my gateway drug and a defining factor of who I am today.
I have eaten idlis and dosas for as long as i can remember. I’ll admit it, I’m team dosa! I love love dosa! Whatever kind it may be- plain dosa, podi dosa, rava dosa, egg dosa, kari dosa, kal dosa, masala dosa, onion dosa, uttapam, onion uttapam, podi uttapam, pizza dosa(YES), EVERYTHING.
My favorite restaurant dosa order has always been either the paper roast (ultra crispy and thin) or the ghee roast (they make a large cone out of it!). I remember the first time i ever saw a ghee roast, a tall cone shaped dosa with the tiniest circle of dosa stuck at the tip, emerging from the restaurant kitchen doors, held aloft by the waiter, like some sort of a UFO slowly drifting towards me, being carefully carried over to the nearby table, clearly larger than the kid it was intended for. I couldn’t look away. It was fascinating. How did a dosa become a cone?! It’s one of those wow moments, like when you get a sparkler in your ice cream sundae. I’m not a little kid anymore, but I still order the ghee roast sometimes just for the whimsy.
