Koro & Krishna – The young & old faces of Manipur
- Part 1 -

S Balakrishnan *

Koro, the Master Chef in the making –

'Vanakkam, enna saapiduringa, Sir?' When we heard these Tamil words while having food at our hotel in Imphal, the food stuck in our throat, because the person who talked in Tamil tongue was a Manipuri! It was like a bombshell exploding unexpectedly near us! After wishing us Vanakkam (Namaste) he enquired 'enna saapiduringa' (What will you have), Sir?'

That was Mr. Khumujam Korounganba with a tongue-twisting name at Hotel Classic Grande at Chingmeirong (in contrast, what a dingdong, rhyming name!) area of Imphal. He had rushed out from the kitchen to meet us in the dining area; he was busy in the kitchen concocting new dishes. Maybe he was trying something really new to test on the hotel guests, his guinea pigs! He had done his course in food production in Tamil Nadu, the Land of Tamils.

So someone serving us and identifying us as Madrasis (South Indians) must have told him. I am sure lot of gossip must be going on behind the screen in the kitchen about the hotel guests; this, I am doubly sure, would be tastier and meatier than the actual food dished out from the kitchen! From my experience in Manipur, I think tourists from far South are rare specimens; further, we could be easily identified as Madrasis by our physical features, particularly I by my dark skin colour.

This despite the shameless fact that I have tried all the fairness creams & lotions advertised by the fairest-of-all cine stars and available in the market – not just for a week or so but for years together – but to no avail! Cheats! Even my wife got suspicious of my 'fair' act. Every morning I would stand before the mirror and dutifully ask it 'mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of all?" and it would also invariably utter 'this Kapur or that Kapoor', depending on the Bollywood trend, but never once my name. Fed up, I smashed it into pieces.

Curious, Mr. Korounganba had come out to meet us. For some time he was loitering near our table, listening to the three of us conversing in Tamil; by then he must have realised that we were in fact Tamilians from Tamil Nadu vis-à-vis the generalized Madrasis from any of the four Southern States. After eavesdropping, he must have also ensured that we did speak Tamil. It was Tamil Nadu where his alma mater was situated. Visibly happy that he was meeting someone from there after a long gap, he hesitantly approached us and then struck a conversation concernedly enquiring thus 'enna saapiduringa (what will you have) Sir?' and 'nalla irruka?' (is it good?).

As they say, you can reach one's heart only through the stomach, I mean, through your culinary expertise. Far off from our land, the kind and concerned words "what would you love to have?' in our very mother tongue Tamil filled up both our stomach and heart. As we were in a rush to stick to our trip schedule, for the time being the conversation ended with customary enquiries. Okay, let us catch up later, I told him.

The next time when we had dinner and had nothing else to do, I thought I would have a leisurely chitchat with Koro. Thank God, luckily he had told me his nickname was Koro; else I would not have remembered his full name. So I enquired if he was on duty and if I could talk to him. Fortunately he was available and appeared from the kitchen, where, as a rule, guests are not even permitted to peek in. Is it for the fear that the state of affairs in the kitchen would put off the guests from eating there? I really don't know!

Koro said he did his course at Nehru Industrial School of Hotel Management at Kuniamuthur near Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu. He did his three-year diploma from 2006. The eligibility for admission is 10th standard completed. He had specialised in Continental style, but that section was yet to open at Classic Grande, he added. During my loitering in the hotel, I had also noticed that work was still in progress on the top few floors of the hotel and it was not ready for full occupation. So he was not able to work out his magic in Continental varieties, but kept himself busy otherwise.

As I have not crossed even our Indian sub-continent, I do not know anything about continental cuisine. The other drawback is that I am a veggie. If at all I get another rare chance to visit Manipur again, maybe I would be lucky to test & taste Koro's continental recipes. I am ready to take that risk!

How did he survive in Coimbatore, particularly the weather? He said it was ok in Kuniamuthur as it was closer to the Nilgiris hills, but it was unbearable in Kerala where we had our in-house training in a five-star hotel, he shuddered even to think about it, it seemed. Maybe they were sent there before the onset of monsoons when it would be really hot & humid.

In particular, I wanted to know how North-Eastern people were treated in my own State because of their Mongoloid racial features. His reply was reassuring. His little bit knowledge of Tamil proved to me that he had been accepted well and he spent those three years in a congenial atmosphere in Coimbatore. Why go and study in such a far off place? That was my next question to him. There were positive reports about the standard of education there, he said and added that there were already a few people from his own State and NE studying at that institution.

I suggested to Koro, 'Now that you have picked up Tamil, a new language, and have not forgotten it even after seven years, do keep in touch with it; an additional language is sure to be of help, some time or other, as at this juncture. Even if there is no one to converse with in Tamil language, you can think in that language; it is like talking to oneself and it surely helps to keep that language alive within.'

But there is a slight chance of you going nuts. In fact, I have been following this trick to retain my half-baked knowledge of Hindi and Nepali, I reassured him. I also used to listen to All India Radio's online Nepali news (national bulletin). The Nepali that I learnt in Sikkim and nourished thus came in handy while revisiting that state, believe me, after a quarter century!

Everyone was impressed – but of course they did not reduce their rates – and I was happily bragging that I had picked up Nepali long back in the early eighties, to the annoyance of my daughter. My stand was I got a rare chance to brag and why should I shy away from it?

Yes, we do have shift duties and have to work extra hours also if situation demands, but we got dropped if it was late in the night, he replied. I do know very well that one should not ask the salary of a man and the age of a woman and that even if you ask you will not get the correct figure from both, but still I was eager to know his salary.

Just to know if the return justified the amount spent on acquiring the diploma from a far off land. But he diligently evaded that question. Maybe he was hesitant of the management. Though I offered him a seat (forgetting for a moment that it was his own working place), yet he preferred to stand, forcing me also to stand up. Again, maybe the hotel rules are like that, their own etiquettes. He was so gentle and soft-spoken that I could not catch much of him.

To be continued....