Meitei meets Madrasi !
- Part 1 -

S Balakrishnan *

Idly & sambar! Dosai & chutney! And, yes, gunpowder! How could I, a Madrasi, invite a Meitei to my home without at least this basic & popular South Indian menu? Idly-sambar and dosai-chutney combinations are as inseparable as Romeo-Juliet and Laila-Majnu. But, of all the things, how does gunpowder fit in this menu?! Well, gunpowder is nothing but the nickname given by the British to the idly powder. Idly powder is just another side dish like sambar or chutney to go along with idly, uppuma (kichadi), and dosai. And, yes, it is dosai, not dosa; don't miss the 'i' and don't miss the dot either. The so-called gunpowder's main ingredient is hot red dried chilly; mix the gunpowder with gingerly (sesame) oil and it is ready in a jiffy as a tasty, spicy side dish!

Ok, let me come to another issue, the main course. Unlike some families, we in our house do not always stock in the fridge the barter for making idly/dosai. Not that we are too diet conscious but washing the grinder is a boring chore. To evade this duty falling on me, I sweetly tell my wife to make chapathi, kichadi, adai or anything she wishes, as long as it is tolerable. Her favourite, however, is uppuma (kichadi) – just boil water, put sooji or vermicelli, lo, it is ready! Even if you don't add salt, no problem; you can mix it just before eating, she would coolly admonish me. This is a collateral consequence I have to grin and bear for avoiding grinder washing. Of course, the idly/dosai barter definitely has its own nutritious factors because of the urad (black gram) content.

Therefore, I struck a deal with my wife – ok, I will wash the grinder, you prepare the barter. After all we are inviting a VIP, a Meitei from Manipur; so let me bear the cross. She gladly signed up the deal. Once the barter is ready, preparing idly or dosai is quite easy, you know; comparatively easier than cooking chpathi. So she decided to make good use of this golden opportunity; murmuring a tune of her favourite TV epic serial, she soaked 8 measures of rice (not any variety but a particular variety called idly rice) and 2 measures of black gram.

No botheration of preparing any other dish at dinner time for a whole week! That was the motive behind her readily signing the deal. For me it is all give (up other dishes) and take (only idly/dosai) policy! As you can see, the whole thing was one-sided, in complete favour of her, but I had no other choice. It was a Sunday evening. The horribly hot weather had cooled down due to frequent rains. So it was pleasant, fit to invite a guest to your home. But before that should I not introduce our VIP Meitei? It would be bad on my part to prolong the suspense beyond a point.

Well, humbly and, at the same time, proudly I say that he is one of my fans, an innocent victim to my scribblings about our recent trip to Manipur. He is one among the dozen e-mail Manipuri fans. In addition, Mr. Khomdram Reagan Singh lives in Chennai! So naturally he was attracted by my first article on watching the Manipuri film 'Sanabi' in Chennai. On learning from that article about my proposed trip to Manipur, he warmly extended invite for a wedding feast, 'How long you will be staying in Manipur? If I get a chance I will definitely invite you for a Manipuri wedding feast. As March is season for wedding, I hope I will be receiving marriage invitation of some friends. Once I get an invitation I would like to invite you,' he had mailed me before my trip.

When I learnt he lived in Chennai, I really got excited to meet him. I could extract so much of information from him about Manipur and life of a Manipuri in Madras. But I had to wait for months together to invite him. First thing, the summer of 2016 was unusually hotter. Of course, we say the same dialogue every year; even till 7 PM Chennai seemed like a great open oven. The second hurdle was colour washing & painting of our house after more than a decade. It took almost a month for everything to fall in its own place after the job was finished. It was really a tough task to live in the house and get the work done.

Then each one of the family was having some commitment or other on weekends. He mailed back 'Even I couldn't get a chance to invite you to my rented house. Because these days we have a client visit for process improvement and my schedule is tight.' That gave me some solace, I am alone was not to be faulted.

At last I could not bear this dragging on business and commanded that during the coming Sunday nobody will have anything else to do except attending on the VIP guest. But who cares! My daughter excused saying it was her college mate's wedding reception. Son has his own schedule on weekends. Further, he had not accompanied us to Manipur and so maybe he was not very curious or particular to meet a Manipuri. Besides, in his workplace he might come across all sorts of people. Well, the date was fixed and Mr. Khomdram Reagan Singh also graciously agreed to visit that Sunday. Needless to say, as a compromise for issuing that command, I had to sign up the 'wash-the-grinder' deal!

The next thing was chalking out the route of the VIP guest. Mr. Singh said it was easier to come by Tambaram-Beach suburban train from his Sithalapakkam area to our Kodambakkam; Sithalapakkam is a suburb situated near Velachery; the IT Corridor is close to his place, he said. Kodambakkam is almost in the heart of the city, close to the shopping hub of T. Nagar, a distance of nearly 25 km. It was decided that I would pick him up at Kodambakkam railway station. The deal was finalised after a few calls and SMSes. We calculated it would take roughly an hour or even more for him to reach our house. 'Give a call as soon as you board the bus for station, and then again as you take the train', I told him.

He did call as he boarded the bus, but for more than an hour after that there was no call. I was worried but I could not reach him over his mobile. And then the call came. Whereas I had hoped he would reach Tambaram for boarding the train, he had hopped on a bus to Guindy station and was caught in a traffic jam in Velachery area. As soon as I got the call, I kick started my bike as there were only three stations in between. I positioned myself on the foot over bridge of Kodambakkam station. Three trains came and went but no sign of Mr. Singh. Again, I could not reach his mobile.

My Airtel and his Tata Docoma did not sync well, it seemed. As if to add to the already tense situation, it started pouring down for 15 minutes. How familiar was he with Chennai? Has he boarded the other direction train? I was really worried. Then a train chugged in and Mr. Reagan's call came through. Happy that he had at last arrived, I directed him to the stairs.

Though it is not uncommon to see people of North-East in Chennai, I could identify him easily by his tense face and clutching the mobile ready for making a call to me or receiving one from me. The train was held up on the way for some reason, he explained. By that time the downpour had also thinned out to be a pleasant drizzle. Reagan was happy for the rain; he was repeatedly exclaiming that the weather had turned enjoyable for the past few days.

What a relief for a person from Manipur where the maximum temperature recorded was only 35.6 °C (96.1 °F), that also only once on 22 May 2009; else, it hovers around 30° C (86° F) even during summer months. So I could empathise with him. We waited on the stairs for some time for the rain to subside. In that gap I could not resist asking him about his name, even if he mistook me. 'How come you have a combination of a Christian 'Reagan' and a Hindu surname Singh'? It may really sound impolite to ask such a thing that soon, but my curiosity won. Luckily, Mr. Singh did not get offended; at least he did not show it outwardly.

'In Manipur, people just give names like that, what they fancy at that moment,' he explained. How long can we wait; also, it was already late. But I had not come prepared for the rain, so I could offer him only a polythene carry bag to cover his head at least. But Mr. Singh declined that; he would rather joyously drench in the pleasant drizzle. Once home, like any Manipuri whom we came across in Manipur, Mr. Singh also probed why we chose his State for a t rip?

I truthfully repeated the same answer – Being the last LTC trip, I was determined to cover as many NE States as possible because NE States – particularly Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya – are quite unique by way of culture, language, tradition, cuisine, costume, religion, etc. Assam and Tripura have a trace of Bengali culture, while Arunachal Pradesh is (or at least Ita Nagar is), religion wise somewhat similar to Buddhist Sikkim where I had lived for 5 1/2 years and which we visited only in 2014. We had already decided upon Assam, mainly for Kaziranga and Majuli, the world's biggest river island with the added attraction of its Vaishnavite Satra tradition.

I told him that as far as possible I always make it a point to combine my visit with a local festival so as to have a wholesome experience. Our visit to Sikkim coincided with Saga Dawa, Buddha Jayanthi festival. It was our good fortune that we had Yaoshang falling within our scheduled dates. So we ticked Manipur along with Assam, though it was initially Mizoram.

Another irresistible attraction was a peep into Myanmar, a foreign nation; of course, Ima Market and the historical Moirang had fascinated me since long, I told him. Mr. Singh seemed convinced that it was not a random selection but a studied selection. Then he threw the next question.

(to be contd)