Indian Takeaway (16 page)

S
ausage, bacon and eggs: the breakfast trinity. My life seems to be full of trinities. When I was young it was the holy one, so mysterious and enigmatic, and the subject of much discussion at my Jesuit School; As you know, I am one of a triumvirate of sons, lodged painfully between Raj and Sanjeev; and as a child I was obsessed with triangles. Properly obsessed. I was a freak of trigonometry, spending hours trying to construct the perfect equilateral triangle (for the uninitiated or those who had a social life during their teenage years, an equilateral triangle enjoys the aesthetic perfection of three equal sides and therefore three equal angles:’ tis a truly wondrous thing). I would sketch scalene after scalene triangle (a triangle where no sides, and therefore no angles are equal) and be repulsed by their ugliness, their gaucheness, their complete and utter lack of geometric charm. And then, as a special treat to myself, I would enter the room of the isosceles triangle, closing and locking the door behind me. For hours I would revel in the two equal sides, the two equal angles …

When it comes to food, sausage, eggs and bacon must be one of the finest trinities that exists. There are many others, of course. Avocado, tomato and basil; a
mirepoix:
the base of most soups and sauces comprising carrot, celery and leek; the base of a curry sauce: onion, garlic and ginger; bread, butter
and jam. The list of trios is endless. But there’s something about the breakfast trinity that elevates it to a higher plane. I believe passionately that a plate with eggs, bacon and sausage is breakfast. Mushrooms can come and go; potato scones are a more than welcome guest, but only ever a guest; toast is by no means a
sine qua non;
beans embellish but are not essential; and the tomato … where else would we introduce grilled fruit onto a plate of porky food?

I have not always harboured such a deep and meaningful love affair with sausage, bacon and eggs. It is a relationship that started when I was seventeen years old, during the very excesses of the eighties. At that time, my cousin Aman, travel agent and single malt lover, had a brilliant new business proposal. This was in the days before cheap air travel. He set up a bus from Buchanan Street bus station that went all the way to Heathrow Airport. It was a beautiful idea. Glasgow wasn’t an international flight hub in those days, so in order to travel home, Indians and Pakistanis had to schlep down to London one way or the other. Flights were expensive and there was no direct bus system. That’s what made Aman’s scheme so revolutionary. For a modest fare a family could, overnight, travel down and catch their plane. Bear in mind that these families, like mine, were returning home on money they had scrimped and saved over the years. I heard stories about fathers who worked three jobs to pull in extra money solely in order to take their families home. I know of mothers who ate a single meal a day in the hope of spreading the weekly shop that little bit further. The problem with my generation is that we think sacrifice is Cava rather than Veuve Cliquot.

In the best traditions of the extended family, Aman asked me to work the bus. I was just out of school, and had never travelled to London by myself. The excitement was overwhelming. My
job was to sell tickets to the handful who hadn’t booked in Glasgow and to do the same at a stop on the way down, often Hamilton or Carlisle. To add to my onerous ticketing duties I would, upon arrival in London, take the tube into Belgravia and with scores of passports that Aman had given me, I would enable the processing of visa applications for Glasgow’s Muslim community heading to Hajj. Hajj is the pilgrimage all Muslims are expected to make to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam. Almost all of the west of Scotland’s Muslims were either Pakistani, Indian or British so they required the correct documentation to travel to Saudi Arabia; and since Glasgow was without a Saudi Arabian embassy a trip to London was required for this, too. From Bishopbriggs to Belgravia, via the services at Knutsford. Knutsford was my favourite part of the entire experience. As a representative of the travel company I, alongside the driver, was entitled to a free meal and hot beverage (excluding soft drinks) at the service station on our way down. Given that we were in Thatcher’s Britain and the free market allowed the driver to exercise choice, the management at the service stations en route were wise to this and attempted to do all they could to lure drivers in; if the driver stopped for sustenance so did a coachful of hungry travellers. The only flaw in this plan was that Indian coach travellers are not big spenders, particularly not when the food offering centres around the concept of the all-day (and in this case all-night) breakfast. Pork-based meals are generally speaking not going to entice the hungry brown-skinned traveller, especially one with little money to spend.

I however had no such reservations and was all too happy to enjoy the twenty-four hour prandial offering they call breakfast. I was delighted by pork, beef and pork/beef based foods. To cap it all, it was free. Gratis. I am Scottish and Indian: I am twice as happy when I get stuff I don’t have to pay for.

I think this was the point in my life when my love affair with the fried breakfast started. It was not the sort of meal we would have at home. Having said that, it has since become a staple in the Kohli household both north and south of the border.

All this thought of breakfast has inspired my culinary plan for Bangalore. Bangalore is the most modern of Indian cities, the cyber-desh if you will. It is the single city that most of the new westerner travellers interface with. For three decades Goa has had the sun-seeking hippies and the holiday-makers; since Independence in 1947, Delhi has enjoyed the comings and goings of the diplomats and politicians; but in the last decade or so, Bangalore has seen an almost exponential increase in westerners, linked to the world of computing and software. The city was recently voted as the best place to do business in the world; truly the face of modern India.

So perhaps, as a clever juxtaposition of modernity with the ancient, I should cook something classically old-fashioned to serve in this eastern altar to the future.

Toad in the hole.

It makes absolute sense. The humble breakfast sausage elevated to a higher place when combined with the finest Yorkshire pudding mix; surely one of the most quintessentially British of all dishes?

I can be almost 99 per cent sure that not even the most seasoned travelling eater in Bangalore will have tasted the delights of toad in the hole there. It is my opportunity to bring innovation through classicism.

But first I have to get there …

As you might have realised by now, my default when travelling in India is to take a train. The romance, the history, the physical sensation and the gradual exposure to Indian life, culture and quirks is so beautifully integrated within the train
journey itself. There is also something magical about being so remote and unaware of the actual mechanism that makes the train move. I am of course aware that there is a locomotive at the front, but there is a certain enigma in not being constantly aware of the process of moving, of travelling. It’s almost transcendental. There is none of this magic with a bus or a coach, a travelling experience that is all too apparent; and when travelling in India, often alarmingly so.

However, in India the train is surpassed by the bus for shorter journeys. Furthermore, and perhaps this is what makes me so very, very British, native Indians much prefer coach travel to the train. I feel compelled to experience their preferred mode of travel. Besides, it is only a very short journey from Mysore to Bangalore.

The 3 p.m. Volvo bus to Bangalore: 180 rupees and the promise of a speedy two-and-a-half hour journey to the capital of Karnataka. Mysore bus station is unsurprisingly full of buses, engines revving, creating clouds of exhaust fumes and hastening the dark skies of late afternoon. There are lime-green buses; red buses; orange buses; multi-coloured buses; there is every sort of bus imaginable and a few that even the most addled mind wouldn’t have colour coordinated. In and amongst the vulgate of buses there is only one king of all Mysore buses: the white Volvo bus. White, sleek, gleaming, beautiful and Swedish; the white Volvo bus is the bus to be on if one is to be the envy of one’s bus-travelling peers.

It really is the sort of vehicle to create bus envy in even the most disinterested of on-lookers. The seats have seat belts; the seat-belted seats are covered in freshly laundered white cotton; these freshly laundered, white cotton-covered, seat-belted seats recline; and having reclined on these freshly laundered white cotton-covered seats, safe and securely fastened in, one can sip
from the complimentary small bottle of mineral water, whilst enjoying the movie that takes place on the in-bus entertainment system. To call this a bus is a disservice to the English language specifically, and to buses in general; this is a coach, a luxury coach no less. I begin to understand why Indians much prefer the coach to the train. The only aspect of the interior I would consider altering would be the mint-green curtains: mint green is so very last season.

I am sitting in the palatial grandeur of my white Volvo bus in the bedlam that is Mysore bus station. Even our driver is dressed better than the average driver. In his smart white uniform, replete with epaulettes and badges, his look is more akin to a naval commander than a humble bus driver. As our vehicle pulls away (it is clearly allowed a wider berth in the hierarchy of coaches and buses) the in-coach stereo starts playing a too-loud version of the title track of
2001: A Space Odyssey
. I would like to tell you that this is done with a sense of frivolous irony; but it isn’t. I am in an irony-free zone.
2001: A Space
Odyssey
is a film that deals with themes of human evolution and development, the rise of technology, artificial intelligence and the possibility of life beyond our own solar system. The music from the film has a pomposity, a grandeur and an elegance that reflects and enhances the intellectually challenging notions of the film itself. But it isn’t the most suitable music for a bus journey between Mysore and Bangalore.

As the majestic film score rattles the windows, it feels as if the moon is to be our destination rather than Silicon Nagar, Bangalore. This pomp adds to the already existing circumstance; we truly are travelling in the king of coaches.

As soon as the music dies away, rather abruptly after such a grandiose start, it seems as if silence may be the order of the day. The journey thus far has had a light smattering of the bizarre
about it: the music, the driver’s nautically themed uniform and the mint-green curtains; not unusually weird, just a little strange. That is all about to change as the weirdness is cranked up to an entirely different level. The plasma screen at the front of the coach stutters into life. It’s time for the movie.

The film showing on my journey is in an Indian language of which I have absolutely no understanding. The opening sequence has a rather overweight Sikh man in a kurta, the long cotton Indian shirt, loading a double-barrelled shotgun and chasing an assumed innocent through the streets of some anonymous Indian ghetto. As the only overweight Sikh man dressed in a kurta on the coach, I feel a tad uncomfortable at this point. The shotgun-wielding Sikh is now driving a forklift truck in pursuit of his hapless quarry. Showing the multitasking skills of India’s premier martial race, the fat, silver screen Sikh drives towards an industrial plant while simultaneously firing and reloading at the sprinting victim. Clearly the Sikh baddie couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo, since every shot is missing by quite some distance. I feel compelled to explain to the enraptured throng on the bus that most Sikhs are far superior marksmen to this Keystone Cop type; on reflection I decide that silence is the better option.

Signs on the back of vehicles on the road to Bangalore