A Dinner That Turned into a Question

When a friend from Jammu visited Vizag last week—aKashmiri vegetarian who loves beaches as much as I love mountains—I thought I’d take him somewhere special. A place I remembered from my younger days: The Heritage hotel of at Daspalla group, known for its Andhra cuisine and thalis that could humble even the hungriest man.

The evening had all the right ingredients: the salt ofthe Bay of Bengal in the air, nostalgia, and two friends from opposite ends of the country meeting midway over dinner.

But nostalgia, as I learned, has its own way of teachingtime. When I asked the waiter about the day’s special, hesmiled politely and said,
“Sir, we have roti, fried rice, and dal makhni.”

I looked up, half-expecting he had mixed up our orderwith a North Indian table.
“What about the South Indian thalis?” I asked.

He shrugged, “Hardly any takers these days, sir. If youwant, we have dosa or idli.”

That single sentence lingered longer than the mealitself.