I don't know why I remember .. beef cutlet and spicy patties

 

Trivandrum in the late 1980's was an interesting place. The Gulf ( 'Gelf') boom was in full swing and there was a newfound prosperity. Brand new houses were springing up in the midst of coconut groves. In the country, Reliance had bid for the world cup and for the first time, a cricket world cup was being held outside England. My father had just got  posted to Trivandrum after three happy years in Bangalore. 

Bangalore in the late 80's was a wonderful place to be in, and the move to Trivandrum was not comfortable. Bangalore had a Air Force Camps where everyone spoke English /Hindi and life was  lived in a comfortable cocoon.Bangalore city, with Rex theatre, Cubbon park, Nilgiris Mall was heaven ( still is in my mind)

Trivandrum was a shock. There was no camp to live in. We lived independently, the normal patterns of life were disturbed. No more did my school friends live in houses next to me, There was no playground to slaunter down to and make friends. Now it was just my brother and me in a house with a large compound. 

The second shock was language. Malayalam was the default, and English/Hindi did not get you anywhere. If you did not know the language, you got excluded from most conversations and interactions. For the first time, I experienced being an outsider and to know what it felt like.It was also the first taste of 'civilian' life.

Bangalore was cosmopolitan, Trivandrum was parochial.

However there were bright spots. If Bangalore was about chicken rolls with sweet mayonnaise and lettuce leaves, Trivandrum was about spicy vegetable pattice and juicy beef cutlets.

My younger brother and I walking down a street, with coconut trees, a tar road with sand on either side. Men lounging around in lungis (Dhoti), folded up to above the knees and tied at the waist.  Walking past small local shops I have only seen in Kerala. Thatched roofs, supported by two pillars, Bananas hanging in bunches on the stems on one side of the shop. The small yellow ones. Thin tender skin, covering a squat sweet banana inside. People would walk by, pluck a few and pay the shopkeeper.There might have been tea and cigarettes, but at that age one did not notice such things.

At the bakery, behind the glass counter, the pattice by themselves looked unremarkable, till one bit into them and the tangy spiciness exploded in the mouth.  The pattice and cutlets were packed in a paper bag and then the walk home, a warm ( and oily) bag in the hand, a promise awaiting to be redeemed.We would open the blue gate, walk up the sloping driveway into the house. The walls were painted in two tones, oil based paint from the floor to half the wall and then normal paint from thereon to the ceiling. We would sit in the dining room and the pattice and cutlets would be set out on plates.

The filling was carrot and peas , but then memories are notoriously fickle. All I recall is a dark brown filling.. caramelized onions, carrot and peas, and spices nestling innocently in a flaky tasty pattice cover. Half of the dark brown flaky crunchy outer layer would remain in the bag or the plate. One then bit into it, past the miada layers  till one reached the spicy filling. There was a moment of bliss to savour the first bite, and then a frenzy of gulping that only a pair of pre teen boys are capable of. A few seconds and that was the end of that, one rummaged on the plate, picking up the fallen flakes off the plate, trying to prolong the experience of eating. 

The beef cutlet was similar. Unremarkable looking like any cutlet. Maybe a little denser , drier and harder than the ones made at home. A combination of potato and beef , spicy like the pattice, but without the balance of the pastry cover.There was no gentleness of the maida to disguise and provide a semblance of comfort, an oasis of bland in a desert of cinnamon and pepper infused fire. The texture was denser, potatoes making an timid appearance amongst the minced beef, though it was difficult to detect on a burning tongue and with watering eyes. 

This was proper grown up stuff. Eating spicy food was a rite of passage. Small kids ate bland food. Spicy food on the other hand, the kind that grown ups ate and enjoyed , well this was definitely in that category. Heck, my father would have it with his drinks, and here I was matching him bite for bite. 

Eating this was proof that I had grown up, solicitous inquiries to my parents from other adults about if I could eat something could now be responded with, 'No you can serve him what you serve us'. The pride of hearing this matched with a suitably nonchalant expression.

If moving to Trivandrum was a rite of passage, then the pattice and cutlets were my badge of honour.

Or then maybe they were just well made tasty snacks and thats all that there was to it.