Skip to main content

Who is the city? Walk III - Street Food of Trivandrum

A Tasty Walk to Remember
written by: Sruthi Kuppadakath, Law Student, Government Law College Trivandrum


I’ve been in Trivandrum as long as I can remember, so are those stationary vans that supply food near Vellayambalam junction. After the heavy traffic around 8ish, daily these vans appear out of nowhere and start their work: feeding hungry tummies of people, cats and dogs. The smell of roasted beef from Sabu uncle’s “ALIF MAHAL” was simply irresistible, and that is where the ‘Who is the City’ walk began. It has been almost 20 years that the van has been stationary at the very place. Perhaps it is long enough for people to feel that van is a part of the junction during evening hours. As we walked and tasted one dish after other, we grew used to the rich aroma of chicken fry and porrotta served lovingly by the non-malayali chettans at the kitchens right outside the vans. I was savoring the juicy beef roast and I spotted a small table across the road with a banner that read “Payasam”. The smell of roasted Prathaman dipped in milk, turning it into light brown color made my mouth water. We were 10 of us for the walk and we immediately jumped to that little space on the footpath. It was run by a lady named Preetha. I asked her why a payasam store in a street bustling with chicken fry, duck ommellett, beef roast, ediyappam, puttu and many more. She smiled and said, “payasam is different”. She was right, we could have a kadala paaysam or paalpaayasam right at the middle of the junction whenever we wanted, one need not wait for Onam or Vishu! We continued the walk visiting vans and dosa stalls arranged here and there along the street, trying out rasavada, omlette, beef chilli, idiappam and all. Out of curiosity I enquired if they had ever tried shifting their location to some other place in the city and why do they choose to be where they are every day, every month, every year? To my surprise everyone said they have never left the Vellayambalam Junction. Some of them feels that, even if they leave for a day, their daily customers might go hungry. For them being there is to serve potions of happiness to their daily customers. Then we reached a Tattukada with no name, which served the most amazing Idiyappam and takkali curry, and trust me that takkali curry did have tomatoes. And finally, our walk ended at a van that was decorated with Chinese lantern figures dimly lit for a pleasant evening: “FORK & SPOON” . It reminded me of POW’s noodle van with secret ingredient noodle stories. We ordered veg noodles and chilli chicken. Walking down the lane from Vellayambalam to Vazhutacaud, I saw many different shades of food and tasted some of the best. More importantly, I met people who started these vans and shops as a business and for whom now it is more about serving hungry tummies. If you happen to see such a van, I’m sure you’ll see people of this city at work - feeding tummies of the hungry people along with the hungry cats and dogs; for a walk towards “hungry stomach, filling food” is simply irresistible.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home as a Grove - Jayan's Abode

  Jayan's Abode began as an exploration of incremental nature of building a house, through the nature of growth of a family into a community. The act of building here is like the act of growing a grove: a meticulous controlled planting yet leaving room for the tree to communicate and grow in its own direction, thus forming a grove - a community of trees offering solace to organisms of all kinds. This Indo-Portuguese family envisages to build one such grove for their four member family to host their guests who travel annually to this abode for ayurvedic rejuvenation and yoga camp. The seed design is a residential unit that can house the four member family. The house invites guests every evening for shared dinner, thus offering an active kitchen yard and a sacred grove adjacent to the bedroom block. The private bedroom block and the public kitchen are connected by living space for select guests to engage with the family. In the later phases, the residence is integrated with the other...
2 comments
Read more

Who is a house?** - An exercise through conversations

Sometimes we ask the wrong questions, most often we never question. In the process of creating a product, we forget to ask who the object is or will be or what happens in the life of an object? As architects we often forget to ask: Who is a house? Who are the people who meet the house? What conversations take place? What culture is born? At a time when even the minutest of an artifact and its position in the house is dictated by the architect whose hegemony imposes a kind of aesthetics on the society, the transition from a house to a home takes multiple encounters between the object, the people and the environment. Every encounter adds a new layer of meaning through constant conversation, adding to newer narratives - multiple formations of a new house; a new HOME.  A house is never static, the textures, the paint, the objects, every spec of dust particles, movement of the people etc. constantly alter the very essence of its sole existence. For an architect, designing a house...
Post a Comment
Read more

Moothram/Urine (Street play/social experiment)

It is always our aim to engage in meaningful dialogue with people around us. Urine is an inevitable part of our urban landscape. Moothram/Urine, was a social experiment to understand Urine as a cultural phenomena in our urban landscape. The performance was structured in two parts: 1. An introductory role play that tried to instigate the audience to question our perceptions of urine, urination and urinals. Many people from different walks of life shared their experiences and t heir ideas of what we lack, who we are and why we do what we do. 2. The prop (A yellow urinal) that was used in the role play, was left in the street to understand how people relate with it. The natural familiarity with the object could gather meanings, from being a mere object to a functional space to an artistic exploration. We leave it to the public to reflect on the object. To begin with, we have installed this on Manaveeyam Road. Although Manaveeyam Road is an important cultural corridor in Trivandrum, ther...
Post a Comment
Read more