When dosa and dal crossed paths

That India is a land of unity in diversity is something every school-going child knows. But how much unity exists in this diversity, especially in the matter of food, is something I recently found out.

A group of us were travelling to the little town of Umarkot in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district. Umarkot is on the Chhattisgarh side of Odisha, and the nearest railway station or airport is Raipur. We landed at Raipur and set out on our five-hour drive through the Adivasi belt of Chhattisgarh.

Our route took us through Dhamtari – the famous rice belt of Chhattisgarh. Whizzing through green paddy fields, we halted at a small wayside restaurant at Dhamtari for breakfast. Naturally we expected to be served wholesome, authentic Chhattisgarh food. But lo and behold! We were offered masala dosa, idli-sambhar and vada-sambhar! We were absolutely dismayed and informed the waiter that we did not want South Indian food in the north and asked him to serve local food. He protested, “But this is what everyone prefers here!” And we really observed that mostly everyone who arrived at the restaurant ordered one of these items. 

After a lot of discussion, he finally agreed to serve us roti and sabzi. The karela sabzi and baigan sabzi he then freshly prepared specially for us and served were delicious. When we enquired, he informed us that the vegetables were fresh from the khethi nearby.  No wonder it tasted so good!

On another occasion we were travelling by road from Bengaluru to Coimbatore. The driver took a roundabout route thanks to (mis)guidance by Google, and so we missed all the regular restaurants on that route. We entered a small town in Tamil Nadu and couldn’t locate any place to eat. It was getting late, and we were truly famished. Some good samaritan informed us that there was a restaurant in one of the inner roads.  After a lot of inquiry, we located the restaurant. Once again, we were hoping for good South Indian food.

However, what we were offered was roti, dal makhani, shahi paneer, kadhai paneer, et al. And the typical North Indian meal was excellently prepared by the chef and his assistants, who were all North Indians!

When the salwar-kameez was introduced, it caught the imagination of girls all over India, and the result is that from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Rajasthan to the Northeast, you can find girls even in the remotest villages wearing this extremely comfortable dress. It’s no longer a ‘Punjabi dress’ as it was earlier known.  

The same goes for Bollywood tunes. You can hear them everywhere, either in the original or locally adapted versions.

I realised that some Indian food items have joined the ranks of the ‘unity in diversity’ list and have become universal, like the dosa, vada, idli-sambhar, chole batura, dal makhani, and kadhai paneer.