A crepe beyond borders

Dulari is a charming, sweet-tempered 24-year-old. She arrived as house help in my brother’s home in Juhu a year ago and has proved indispensable ever since. She “floats and shimmers,” as Bertie Wooster would have eloquently put it, and always seems at hand when most needed. Whether to walk the dog or to cover for the cook who took an unexpected day off. But perhaps her most prized skill in the household is her ability to make dosas! 

My brother’s Punjabi wife, true to her lineage, loves her idli/dosa and sambhurr. Their two children have also inherited these taste buds. So a dosa dinner is as popular, perhaps even more so, than sushi night or pizza/pasta parties, since dosas are an unequivocal favourite with every member of the family.

Knowing this, I offered to treat them to dosas during a recent visit. Along with homemade idli-podi and sambhar, where the whole spices and coconut are freshly roasted (varutha) and ground (aracha). During dinner I hovered for a bit in the kitchen. I assumed Dulari could use some help in producing dosas to match their rapid rate of consumption. I was surprised to find she had no trouble at all and was efficiently turning out two kinds—millet (brown-wallah) and standard (safed-wallah). I happily returned to the dinner table and enjoyed both the food and the compliments.

The following day I observed that Dulari and the day staff were warming up leftovers and planning a dosa feast of their own. I asked Dulari whether she liked eating dosa. Imagine my surprise when she not only said yes but also that it was regularly made in her home in a remote village in Jharkhand! Extremely intrigued, I asked how this came to be. Her answer was even more surprising. She said it was a customary practice there and that during festivals and special days, dosas were served in all the houses! The batter was made the traditional way, by hand and in stone grinders. Accompaniments, though, were more local, in lieu of the ubiquitous chutney and sambhar of the South.

Dulari was unable to provide further clues for this amazing cultural diffusion. Across thousands of kilometres and into India’s hinterland, where the pace and rhythm of life tie so much more closely to immediate environs. 

This heartwarming tale is a delectable example of the marvel of India’s melting pot. Which naturally absorbs and quietly integrates. But equally thrilling is the fascinating story of migration and assimilation. How did the humble South Indian crepe reach and blend into a culture so far removed from its birthplace? Who was the person who first began making dosas in Dulari’s village? How did it then become an integral part of its local cuisine? This is food lore worth chasing down. And it will make for another captivating chronicle.