a south indian idli

Rough food tastes nicest when you're hungry
I sat in the Karnataka Sangam in New Delhi
I sat there contemplating
a pair of white, fluffy, light
round cakes of rice-flour
accompanied by a bowl of pale creamy coconut-and-lentil chutney
and a piping hot offering of fiery golden-red sambhar

the idli....
I don't know when I fell in love with this simple South Indian dish
these steamed rice cakes

probably way back when I was knee high to a grasshopper
in St Xavier's School, Doranda
Class two
Jostling along with the other lads
fighting to get to the window of the 'canteen'
to receive a cold steamed idli floating in thin watery dal-chutney
nestling in a makeshift bowl made with a twist of green leaf
held together by a toothpick for the princely price of ten paise.

Today my dish of two idlis at karnataka Bhawan
costs me twenty rupees.....
they're delicious
but I doubt if they'll ever match
the taste of those coarse white rice-cakes
nestling in that ecologically friendly bowl
a feast for an ever hungry seven year old......