The Many Lives of a Dosa
The feeling of sitting idle at home while you wait for the staggering number of companies to “get back to you” after “thoroughly reviewing your application” is in essence what I feel when I look at a dosa.
The dosa is perhaps the most revolutionized (bastardized) food in Indian cuisine. The dosa as is with any food has a debatable origin, with Achaya and Nair locked in a heated debate claiming Tamil Nadu or Karnataka (source: long rabbit hole, just google it). Although this debate was splashed with water and wiped off the tawa once the concept of the dosa migrated towards the north. Now at any given streetside dosa stand one will find the most artistic of creations with the dosa as the canvas.
My heart has experienced multiple sharp piercing pains as I continue to write this blasphemy, so I now believe that I must justify myself from earlier. I adore the classic dosa, sada, coconut chutney, ghee podi, the works. I am not a man who despises the classics, and that goes for my dosa as well, irrespective of which state it originated from. It is one of my most cherished comfort foods and I swear by it.
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That being said, there also exists a very very guilty side to this coin, a side which all of us share because there are times where you begin to stare at the menu board, when you question whether the paneer stuffing could be ecstatic, whether perhaps shezwan is the right move today, whether an egg masala omelet with cheese made on top of a dosa is what you are missing. The box of pandora lies open before your eyes and it is just a matter of sticking your hand into it and giving in to the temptation.
I do not guarantee a successful flavor and textural experience 10/10 times but about ninety-nine percent of gamblers do in fact cut losses before the big win. A nasty game of dosa roulette might just make you hate the food all together or it might make you feel like the original was not doing justice, was holding the food back.
The IT professional moving down south might just fall in eternal love with the absolute classic, whereas the finance professional might move up to Mumbai and have the world of dosa opened up to them. There exist a myriad and uncountable number of variations in the dosa, a wild variety of preferences, a huge plethora of places serving a huge plethora of options across the country. Choosing your favorite is fine, perfect even. However it is also fine to wonder what more can be done.
Like it or disgust at it, there won’t stop existing multiple ways to experience something. There is always a choice to be made, and more often than not the debate is not the origins nor is it the correct way, it is often the human conceived illusion that one cannot be or do both. The idea that a sada dosa can be enjoyed from time to time in between the fiery mess of the shezwan paneer dosa is a very valid way of life. The absolute same goes the other way around, sometimes the sada dosa is exactly what one needs.
The process starts the very same, no matter the utensils or the ingredients in the batter, the dosa must be spread at a certain heat, and must stay on for a certain time, and there exists a very very brief moment where one must decide whether the dosa is going to be a comfort to someone, or a spicy mess that burns whoever dared to try eat it from the inside, or something else entirely. As long as the moment is captured, the dosa takes on a vivid flavour and texture profile. If one misses the moment though, they can always splash some water, wipe off the tawa, start again and hope this time the dosa suits their palate.
Now you may be wondering how I am about to reveal the true nature of my abhorrent ramblings as a hidden metaphor for the question of modern life and the trials and tribulations that come with living in a late stage capitalist society, how I will now expand upon the meaning of decisions and why a dosa made me as philosophical as it did. But I am not. This is solely about the varieties of dosa. So both you and I, as all humans do at some point, must sit with the feeling of what could that cheese paneer dosa have tasted like?
