My first Love !!!!

 

There have been several memes and reels on South Indians and their love for Biryani. Well, I vouch on these sentiments. It always amazes me how a food has powerful influence on our emotions and memories and takes me back in time and elicits a lot of feelings.

Recently I was remembering an incident that happened few years back, or rather decades back with my college gang. Our gang is a close-knit group and we used to regularly catch up. Those were the initial days of our career and none of us were paid so much that we could afford to go pubbing etc. Our favorite hangout was either in Hannah’s house (Story for another day) or roam the streets of Chennai and end up in the beach. We were a group who would go on sudden crash diet or so-called fad diets which mostly was before any upcoming wedding of our batch mates. On several occasions, we used to get reprimanded by our parents since we would be not eating food and choose to make something and end up binge eating at midnight.  

One day our friend Periyasamy aka Sam informed us that his sister is getting married, and the family would be coming to Chennai to purchase the bride’s saree. It was a norm that people across other cities and towns in Tamil Nadu would either come to Chennai or go to Kanchipuram to do wedding purchase. Sam called us and said, since his sister did not have any company, would it possible for Hannah and me to accompany them for the purchase. As the diligent friends we were, we readily agreed to it and tagged along. The plan was they would finish the shopping and leave for their hometown Karur in the evening via train. Finally, after a lot of bickering, difference of opinions, the final purchase was made. Since, none of us were interested in shopping, we by then have texted a few friends in our gang to come over and give us company. By the time, the final purchases were done almost five of our friends were in the showroom.

Being a weekend, we had already started discussing about having biryani for lunch. A food that we keep falling in love again and again. Sam’s brother-in-law out of goodwill wanted to take us for lunch. He was not ready to accept us declining the invite. Since, we did not want to be rude, we accepted to go for lunch with their family. But alas, as per the customs in most Hindu communities, usually families stop cooking and eating nonveg from the day the wedding is finalized to the final day. Yup a good way to ensure people are on diet and look good for the D Day. We sat in Saravana Bhavan (pure vegetarian cuisine) for lunch with images of biryani floating in our heads. Since, we did not want to be rude, we decided to order one dosa and share within us. Sam’s brother-in-law presumed, we were conscious and asked us not to be shy and order more. Sam had no clue what was wrong with us, since we were unable to inform him on the modus operandi we had made in the few hours. Once we were all done, we accompanied them to the Egmore railway station from where they had to board the train.

Once they boarded, we informed Sam what was the plan and parallelly informed rest of the group. A friend of ours, who had declined coming with us for the shopping stating he could not travel for 20 kms, turned up. Yes, once biryani came into the picture travelling miles did not look tedious. After all this craziness, we realized that its way past 3 pm and shops would open only in the evening. Sad but still not accepting defeat, we decided to wait and finalize which restaurant we would need to go to and fixed on ‘Kalyana Biryani’ that was famous in 2010. This was located near the Police Headquarters. We decided to while away our time in the railway station, sipping coffee and cracking dumb jokes. After wasting almost 3 hours, we started walking towards the restaurant, which was approximately 2 kilometers further from the station.

We reached the restaurant, waited for them to open the shutter. The waiter looked at us curiously, and if I remember correctly, they decided to let us in though it was before the opening time. Guess gender plays a vital role in several places. The waiters looked at us as though we were a pack of hungry wolves who had lost their way. If they had known, what all we did to have this biryani am sure they might have informed Kilpauk Hospital (Mental asylum) to take us in. The banana leaf was placed on the table and piping hot biryani was served. We gulped it to our heart's content and smiled at our success of having biryani for the day or rather night. After our wonderful accomplishment, we decided to go back to our respective places as we were spread all across the city.

Till this date, when I think about all the crazy stuff, we have done for biryani, it makes me laugh. Our group is now spread across the world, but when we catch up the biryani madness, is something that we still have. Food has a way to connect our past and biryani not just connects our past it stirs up sentimentality.