Lunch at Aunt Selvi’s: A Mangalorean Masala
Somewhere between the coconut groves nodding in agreement with the wind and paddy fields glinting smugly in the noon sun, stood Aunt Selvi’s house—red-tiled, jasmine-scented, and perpetually accompanied by the smell of ghee, wood smoke, and mild family disapproval.
It was supposed to be a simple lunch.
But nothing is ever simple when you have a guest list that reads like a Sahitya Akademi jury meeting. At the head of the table sat Aunt Selvi herself, clad in an indigo sari, a turmeric streak on her cheek, and a ladle held like a sceptre. Beside her was Uncle Chris (formally, Krishnaswami Karanth), looking every bit like a retired revolutionary in exile, and his house guest Dr. Thankaran Koshi, a professor from the Department of Linguistic Studies who spoke in phrases like “semantic fluidity” and “proto-Dravidian aspiration loss.”
Adding a touch of literary weight was Kaveri Ponnappa, author of The Vanishing Kodava, who had brought with her a packet of smoked salt and gossip from Coorg. I, Siri—daughter of Indu, niece of Paddu, and unwitting chronicler of this culinary opera—had arrived with my children Jenny (10 and opinionated) and Andy (12 and perpetually suspicious of vegetables).
Just as the fragrance of mustard seeds and jaggery announced the star dish, Aunt Selvi came out with a flourish. “Pineapple menasukai with pundigatti,” she declared, as if unveiling the Kohinoor. Golden chunks of pineapple stewed in a sweet-sour-chilli symphony, ladled generously over dumplings of boiled rice, tender enough to convert a fasting monk.
My daughter Jenny stared at it with a forensic intensity. “Wait. Where are the tomatoes?”
“No tomatoes today,” I said, scooping her a portion. “It’s a no-tomato week. House rule.”
She stood up, aghast, declaring with the fury of a betrayed Roman senator, “What rasam without tomatoes! That is sacrilege!”
Andy, meanwhile, was poking his pundigatti suspiciously, eyes narrowing like a detective with a hunch.
“I just want to know if there’s cabbage in anything,” he said. “Cabbage is not to be trusted.”
Dr. Koshi looked up from his plate, delighted. “Talking about cabbages and cauliflower…”
Uncle Chris, right on cue, chimed in with his favourite line, “Cauliflower is but a cabbage that has been to college!”
Polite chuckles rippled across the table, except from Andy, who remained unconvinced of cauliflower’s academic credentials.
Conversation meandered, as it does in homes that have too much history and not enough filters. Kaveri was explaining why certain Kodava clans used rice flour in rituals and not wheat, when I slipped into a memory from five years ago, when my in-laws first moved in.
My husband, determined to impress them, had laid down food laws like he was Moses on Mount Sinai. “No onion, no garlic, no potatoes,” he had told our cook solemnly. “Tomatoes only once a week.”
The cook, a robust woman from Kundapura, had dropped her ladle in shock. “So, only ash gourd and prayer?” she had whispered. I think she wept quietly into the sambar that evening.
“Do you know,” I told Jenny now, “tomatoes were once called vilayati begun—foreign brinjals. Our ancestors didn’t even touch them till the Portuguese brought them over.”
“That explains a lot,” she said darkly. “Colonialism and bland rasam.”
As the meal drew to a close, Aunt Selvi brought out papads fried in ghee, spiced bimbli in coconut masala, and a lone bowl of watery neer mor that looked like it had just given up. It was glorious.
But glory, like good papad, is always short-lived.
Just then, we heard gravel crunch and the unmistakable voice of Aunt Paddu, my mother’s sister, storming in with all the grace of a bandh rally.
“Where’s the carrot kheer?” she asked sharply, scanning the table as if searching for a fugitive.
“I didn’t make any,” said Aunt Selvi, tilting her chin with defiance. “I made pineapple menasukai.”
Paddu turned to Chinnu-Chittappa—her husband Srinivasan Aithal, a quiet man who still thinks email is a passing phase.
“No carrot kheer? What will I tell Amma’s photo?” she asked, scandalised.
Uncle Chris tried to help. “We served ellu bella!”
Paddu sniffed. “That’s not dessert. That’s a festival obligation.”
By then Jenny had finished her pundigatti and was licking the spoon like it was an act of protest. Andy had moved on to poking a fried papad as if waiting for it to blink.
Aunt Selvi finally threw her hands up. “Next time,” she declared, “I’ll stick to upittu et al. No drama, just semolina and silence.”
Postscript:
I, Siri, on my honour, promise: no parangis were harmed during the writing of this story. They were only eaten—with relish.
Parwatisingari's Weblog 
Leave a comment