Mother-in-law + Son-in-law atrocities

I grew up in a simple Tamil household where the menu would typically range from rasam + palya (everyday food) to mysore rasam + palya with grated coconut (special food). Saturday morning breakfast was always the lonely pongal (Please note that sambar/chutney was not served). A cheat day would comprise of the above menu + fried vathal. Once a year, after constant nagging the parents would take us to Hotel Gokul Veg (A/C) and we would order rotis and Navratan Kurma.

Now, you may wonder why I am writing about the culinary habits of my early life. The humble rasam sipping, palya eating household encountered a watershed event a few years back – The arrival of the Mappillai aka Son-in-Law. This incident has brought to light the latent and previously unknown culinary skills of the mothership. When the mappillai visits for breakfast, pongal with a side of coconut chutney, sambar (with veggies) and wait for it – vadai is made. Yes, you read that right. Vadai – that crunchy, golden, delicious, drool inducing snack that one eats in restaurants like MTR and A2B. And half of those vadais were put into a bowl of yoghurt with boondi on top called thayir vadai. Lunch now has 2 courses that precede and succeed rasam along with 2 palyas – one is green veggie palya with grated coconut (good for health you know?) and the other is always potatoes roasted to a crisp. Oh and fried appalam. And one payasam with a generous sprinkle of nuts and raisins.

Do you know those tiny little white cubes that are in gravies eaten with rotis? Paneer you say? Yes. Pre-2014, the only place that I’ve ever seen paneer butter masala is in South Indian wedding receptions where it it served alongside other authentic South Indian delicacies like rumali roti , white sauce pasta and chaat. The mothership put these cubes in a dish, hitherto unheard of in the household , called “matar paneer” and made methi puris to go with it. Ladies and gentlemen, not rotis but puris. Not just any puri but methi puri.

Now why am I telling you all of this? Because the great Tamil pulavar aka philosopher Mr. Goundamani had foreshadowed this in his 1985 movie Kanni Raasi. There is a hilarious sequence where his wife, Sumitra makes a feast for her son-in-law who visits them. To call it a feast is to call the Taj Mahal a building. The three feet long grocery list includes 2 kg of muna paruppu or mundiri paruppu aka cashew nut and 3 kg of pista – an item that Goundamani has so far never heard of in his life. She then proceeds to make aatukaal soup – a delicacy that she has never made in 25 yrs of her married life. Goundamani is flabbergasted that his wife is actually familiar with the term “soup”, let alone make some.

Likewise over the last few years, I have discovered to my surprise that the mothership can indeed make chole bature, badam halwa, all paneer based side dishes and paruppu urundai kuzhambu (a very rare type of sambar that takes about 173685 hours to make). The only dish that hasn’t made an appearance so far is gobi manchurian and that too only because His Highness is not particularly fond of it and not because the mothership is lacking in Chinese culinary knowledge.

The mappillai for his part unfailingly does what all mappillais do – saying hello with a big smile while entering the house, saying bye when leaving and spending the rest of the time sitting on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, scrolling through Facebook on his phone. If he so much as *returns* the empty coffee dabara-tumbler to the sink, verses will be sung on his simplicity and humility and how I am the luckiest of all women to have been blessed with this 24 carat bar of gold.

It is surprising that Archies doesn’t have a category of cards to celebrate the unique and underrated bond between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law. (I’m seriously considering a signature campaign.) To think of it, ever other relationship known to man is symbiotic in nature – it involves giving and taking and mutually benefits the people involved. But the MIL-SIL bond is unique in that the concerned parties are genuinely aware of the nature of the relationship and immensely enjoy it being so.

A parasitic one where one cooks and the other eats.