Deconstructing Sambar: Curry Philosophy at a French Cafe

It had been a hectic few days of travelling by train and bus, and I had just returned from Tamil Nadu.

We were having coffee at Café de la Paix, just past Place de l’Opera. Orwell was there first, he looked like he hadn’t slept much. I had slept well and strolled in after a breakfast of croissants and orange juice. I ordered an espresso while George sipped water. Descartes would join a half hour later.

Orwell had started me off. He was born in Motihari in Bihar but their neighbor’s accounting clerk was from the Madras. He had imbibed a taste for sambar. It was a pungent soup, replete with local spices, but at least it had a few vegetables. He had been investigating social conditions in economically depressed Northern England lately and felt sambar would have been definitely preferable to a weak potato stew [spiced down a bit, maybe].

I told him I had been to schools across the Madras state, Hyderabad and Mysore. The best sambar came from Madras. But the best sambar that ever accompanied my rice was made by my mother. A glorious coming together of South Indian staple and of North Indian tastes – chunky potato bits, cauliflower and of course the traditional drumsticks, served steaming hot with rye seeds. They had laughed at me, men always loved their mother’s cooking and that was the foundation of later domestic squabbles. The mother in law’s cookery always came back to haunt their son’s brides as witchery.

Orwell had already introduced Descartes to sambar – the idea, not the taste, for Orwell couldn’t cook to save his life. But the idea, as always, was enough for Rene and he said, “It is what it is. It’s not enough to have good ingredients; the main thing is to use them well.”

I mentioned that I was not a fan of the Mysore sambar. It had very little vegetables and was over spiced at times and then had sugar added to it to give it a taste of sweetened swill. Descartes was quick to comment,” Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow. And while a culinary optimist may see light where there is none, why must a pessimist always run to blow it out?”

“Sambar is truly timeless,” Orwell mentioned coming back to the present moment (he was quite distracted these days by his illness and the rise of the fascists),” 'Every line of serious work that I've written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against Totalitarianism, and what is sambar but a broth against Totalitarianism. With a sambar, have a bowl for breakfast and you will still be burping it up at dinnertime. Democracy has a way of lasting”. Descartes and I feigned interest in this line of reasoning and Orwell mistook this as encouragement. “Sambar is the very juice of easy flowing democracy. Ask anybody who has had Idli Sambar at a Madras Café.”

Descartes had heard of a new chain of restaurants called Saravana Bhavan near the Elysees where the food while affordable led to a compromise in the taste of the sambar. “"The first thing is never to accept anything for true which we do not know to be such – Ashish, George you must try this sambar and give me your judgment!” Orwell looked at me with a dyspeptic eye, a silent rebuke for having involved a French philosopher in a debate on sambar yet untasted. “I will, somewhere between Animal Farm and 1984,” he muttered picking up his hat and stick.

I came awake with a start on the couch where I had slid into a nap after polishing off the idli-sambar.