Delhi on a plate.. 

Growing up in Delhi, we did not think much about food or culture.

Food was food.

Festivals were fun.

If something tasted good or came with sweets, we were interested. The history behind it could wait.

Only much later did we understand what made Delhi different.

Delhi had been the seat of power for centuries. Every group that came to rule the city seemed to leave something behind.

The Rajputs brought their traditions.

The Mughals brought their food and festivities.

The British brought theirs.

Then came the Punjabis who moved to Delhi after Partition, Tibetans who made the city home, and, somewhere in this great migration, the Tamils arrived too.

Each community brought its own food, festivals and habits.

Delhi absorbed all of it.

By the time we were growing up, the city had become a giant melting pot, though we certainly did not use that phrase as children.

We simply ate our way through it.

One thing we particularly loved was something that seemed uniquely Delhi to us.

You could take ingredients to a local baker and ask him to turn them into biscuits and other baked treats.

Our favourite was atte ka biscuit.

There was something wonderful about taking ordinary ingredients to a baker and getting back something that looked and tasted completely different.

Then there was the street food.

Kulcha chole.

Chowmein.

The ubiquitous chole bhature.

All kinds of chaat.

And paranthas.

Delhi may be the only city where an entire street is famous simply because people decided to make paranthas there.

As Tam-Brahms, we were strict vegetarians.

But we never felt that this meant we were missing out.

There was too much food and variety around us.

We looked forward to the langar at the gurudwara with the same enthusiasm with which we waited for Tuesday prasad at the Hanuman Mandir.

We drank ganne ka juice with the same enthusiasm as a chilled glass of chabeel in the summer.

We ate what Delhi offered and never stopped being who we were.

Because back home, we still had our filter coffee.

Our idli.

Our sambar.

Our temples.

Our gods.

M.S. Subbulakshmi playing somewhere in the background.

And everything else that made our house unmistakably Tamil.

We did not see any contradiction in this.

Delhi gave us kulcha chole, chaat, langar, chabeel and atta biscuits.

Home gave us filter coffee, idli, sambar and the occasional lecture.

We happily took both.

Only later did we realize that this was perhaps the most Delhi thing about growing up there.

You did not have to choose one culture over another.

You could eat your way through the whole city and still go home for filter coffee.