The story behind our next food festival...

From the pages of our travelogue

It was a wet wet day, the day Udit and I set out on this culinary expedition of South India.
We had nothing planned, no itinerary in hand, it was just a travel undertaken as a common man to understand his world, interests , places of eating, pastime etc. We had decided to catch the bus from C.M.B.T bus stand but through our reliable sources we came to know that from Central we can get better buses, so here we were.


Our first stopover was to be Bangalore. We boarded the bus in Chennai and dozed off. “Last stop Majestic Circle”, erangunga… this yell was what woke me up from my slumber and I looked around unsure of where I was or what I was doing. Now the conductor was right next to me and screaming again. This woke me completely, woke Udit up as well and the two of us began what was to be a very adventurous day.

We got off the bus only to realize it was freezing outside. Either of us had not carried any warm clothing since we did not anticipate this kind of whether. We headed straight to the chai shop and got some warmth into our systems with a nice hot cuppa. Then we went on our search for a place to change before we headed out for the day. ‘Good luck lodge’ was neat & cozy for a bath and change place. We got ourselves a room and put our legs up for the first time in 8 hours. We rested for a while before going out to breakfast at Kamat, a small shack under which the make shift hotel served as one Bangalore’s most famous roadside shops. And I must tell you, the place definitely lived up to its name. The idly’s (called kadubu here) and the slightly sweet sambar, the rava dosa laced with ghee, the food was superb and so was the bill amount Rs. 55 for a breakfast for two.

Once we were done with our breakfast we aimlessly roamed the market of Bangalore to site interesting spots that we could capture on camera. It was yet a gloomy day and all of a sudden it began raining. With the rain coming a lot of the street side vendors and hawkers shut shop and went away. But there were yet few who braved the rain and went on selling their stuff. We got some lovely shots of a man selling banana on a cart in the rain, a lady selling hot roasted peanuts and a another hawking colorful roses.

We were so excited and engrossed in getting pictures that we hardly realized it was way beyond lunch (almost half past 2) until our stomach started making all kinds of noises. We decided to give lunch a miss but eat a snack from a near by tea shop. We got ourselves chai, cookies and a local specialty called ‘Dil Pasand’, a puff pattie stuffed with coconut, sugar, cherry etc. Amazing stuff but very heavy, so just managed to finish 1/4th of it. We then decided to go to a near by village called Attibelle. Actually a local at the tea shop and referred us to go there to savors some authentic Karnataka street food

Attibelle on the outskirts of Bangalore was a 35 minute journey from Majestic. We left in a state bus and got there some 55 minutes later. Attibelle was a small and beautiful It village situated on the highway. The villagers were very helpful and talked to us in length about the village and the surrounding places. Here too because of the rain not many shops and road side hawkers were open. We bought ourselves umbrellas and looking around and clicking pictures of the local landscape and food stalls. After spending about two hours and learning a lot about the local cuisine we went to the Market famous for its kebabs like (shammi, seekh, katti etc), parathas, chaps and briyani. The food in the counters looked so inviting that we just gave into our desire and ate to our hearts content. This gave us enough energy to carry on until the next morning.

We finished around 7:30pm and then went to book our tickets for Mangalore. The drive to Mangalore was pretty bumpy and by the time we got to Mangalore which was not until 10 in the morning the next day I had my bones almost falling apart. We went straight to a hotel got ourselves a room and had that much need bath. We then relaxed for a bit before we vacated the room and were back at the bus stop. No no our trip to Mangalore was not to experience the bumpy bus ride. This was in fact our stopover to reach Udupi, 70 km from Mangalore.

The town of Udupi is famous for two things, the lord Krishna temple here and the famous Udupi vegetarian fare. Once at Udupi we actually took that much required breather and rested the entire morning. It was not until tea time that we left the hotel and hit the near by beach to check out some local cuisine. We not only got some amazing recipes for our project but also managed to click some good pictures of the stalls and the displays.

Our next sojourn was to be Calicut and we decided to take the train this time. Disappointment was guarding our gate again! This time we did not get a reservation so we had to travel in the general compartment and as if this was not enough the train was 2 hours late. Anyways we boarded the train for what was to be a 6 hour journey. Though the unreserved compartment was crammed and difficult the two of us slept really well thanks to being really worn out.

Calicut was a great experience indeed! It was here that we jotted down details of non veg street food fare. mussels bhajji, fish fry, syrian beef fry, appam and stew and more. Fresh banana chips stalls dotted every street corner. Even dessert stalls by the beach… kachang, payasam… hmm we gorged on the food! We were on the last leg of our journey, a train back to pavilion – Chennai. This journey was largely uneventful except that the train reached Chennai Central and the two of us were fast asleep. It was not until a good 15 minutes after that we realized and woke up.

The journeys to the heartland of South India was exciting, educative and a great experience!