How do you celebrate your new year?

This year the celebration of Vishu, the New Year of Keralites or Malayalees, was muted.

Vishu falls on 14th or 15th April* and Malayalees aka Mallus* make a song and dance about it. They start celebrating with the Vishukkani at 4 a.m. and follow up with bursting firecrackers, getting money as Vishukainettam from elders, greeting friends and family, consuming a sumptuous meal at mid-day, wearing new clothes, the list goes on.

Madmusings interviewed two stalwarts in Canada who have not missed celebrating Vishu in the last fifty years. We caught up with them after an impressive meal.

Staunch pillars of society

The two brothers, Kuttunni and Kunjunni, migrated to Canada in the seventies. They have not missed one Vishusadya or meal, the highlight of the celebration. These sturdy pillars of the Mallu society get multiple invitations every year to review the authentic taste of Keralite cooking, judge the hosts and spread the word. Requests begin trickling in by mid-March. Although they were not booked solid in 2020, between them, they managed ten sadyas.

Kuttunni is pot-bellied. His balding head has run out of ideas to grow more hair. The remaining outgrowth is jet black and fighting a losing battle with an encroaching forehead. Thick and wildly twisted eyebrows shading deep-set black eyes fence the south side of the heavily creased forehead. The bulbous nose separating the eyes can comfortably launch bigger flies. The most prominent feature on Kuttunni’s otherwise cartoonish face is the mouth drawn from one ear lobe to the other. When Kuttunni stretches his mouth in both directions, it’s only to talk, eat, and snore.

“My earliest recollection of Vishu is in Trichur*. It revolves around great food, new clothes, firecrackers, Vishukkani and Vishukainettam. That was the sixties when the Indian rupee had buying power and when hand-drawn rickshaws and cycle-rickshaws shared the roads and potholes with that workhorse of Indian roads, the ambassador car.” Kuttunni goes on and on.

Kuttunni is now well settled in Brampton, Ontario. Every year, Kuttunni manages to taste at least a dozen Vishusadyas. ‘How to wrangle a sadya’ is a strategic manoeuvre that Kuttunni repeats every year. He begins his first round of calls to friends and relatives around North America at least a month before. He finds it convenient to call and leave messages, so ‘they’ will call back. By the end of the week he manages six invites. By end-March, he emails his confirmations. Ten solid sadyas for 2020 each set apart by one day on average. Perfect, thought Kuttunni.

The first sadya was on 14th April, new year’s day. Being a weekday, and under quarantine due to COVID-19, the attendance was small and consisted of retired people, people displaced from jobs, and hardcore sadya-tasters.

The traditional sadya is eaten with the hand, sitting cross-legged on the ground. Servers come around with each item; there is a place and time for everything on the plantain leaf or plate. And there is a structured way to experience the meal. As judges, the ‘K’s award points for every feature; creativity gets bonus points.

Let the celebration begin

Kunjunni, the mirror image of Kuttunni, sits at the other end of the table. Kunjunni approaches a Vishusadya from a different angle. He is the karanavar in North America and gets invited by default. If Kunjunni does not get asked, then that unfortunate Malayalee is toast, as in burnt toast. Kunjunni gets to pick and choose his favourite eating holes.

This practice of sitting down got elevated to the table at the turn of the century. The traditional plate is a large plantain leaf, freshly cut. At last count, a real plantain leaf imported frozen from Thailand or S. America cost Cdn$ 2.50! Kuttunni views the vinyl replica of the plantain leaf and wiggles his nose in disdain.

Kuttunni does not like things synthetic, especially when it comes to food. He wishes he had taken a leaf from tradition and brought a plantain leaf himself. With the aroma and expectation of the coming sadya, he relents and sighs, carefully sizing up the vinyl sheet. He turns it around; surprisingly, it’s Canadian made. It still looks like a fake painting of a banana leaf.

Kuttunni mentally marks two minus points — one for the table and one for the leaf. So did Kunjunni.

A feast for the eyes and the senses

Vishusadya is a glorious treat and a feast for the eyes. The green leaf, more than a foot long, with one side tapering to the left, gradually becomes a visual spread. Each accompaniment has its place; every server goes through a rigorous course to attain perfection. The ‘K’s [Kuttunni and Kunjunni] grunts with approval at the perfect display in front of them. Five marks for positioning.

Rice comes in a long bamboo basket and gets tumbled onto the plantain leaf. Kuttunni [K1] keeps pace with Kunjunni [K2]. K1 makes a neat incision in the rice and palms it further right. Warm ghee glistens on the rice as the yellow ‘parippu’ waits for its turn to join the first course. In unison, the ‘K’s rotate their hands around the rice clockwise sweeping in its path any stray grains of rice to form a small mound.

The hands then hover over the mound and come down, smashing everything in its path. At the end of ten seconds, three beautiful balls of rice squashed with ghee and parippu stood ready for approval. One by one, the balls disappear into the black hole; two marks more for homemade ghee.

The remaining mountain of rice soon gets levelled to a plateau two inches high. The hands scoop a big crater which is filled immediately with three big spoons of sambhar. K1 waits for a moment and fills his giant nose with the steaming aroma. The moringa kaya sambhar smelled just right. He ponders on giving full marks. Then he decides to taste it.

“Is there an extra tinge of kayam?” K2 asks K1. K1 decides to give the hostess the benefit of the doubt and awards two points. K2 gives only one and a half marks.

Most of the rice sloshed and slushed with sambhar disappears. Olan waits next in line, followed by kalan, kuttukari, aviyal, puli inchi, and inchithaiyiru. K1 and k2 swoop, dive, roll, sweep, squish, slurp and burp through the rest of the courses with an ease and delight that reflect on their faces. K1 is more expressive due to his training in kathakali. K2 burps more.

Even the burp from a Vishusadya has a musical tone. It goes like this: ‘eeeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmm,’ deep from the pits of the stomach, with strong encouragement from the bottom of the heart. K1’s burp reverberates longer and louder.

The perfectly chopped cabbage upperi gets bonus marks. Altogether, the Ajax-based hostess scores 15 marks from K1 and 13 marks from K2.

Rice with rasam and pappadam follow. The only items left on the plate now are bananas and naranga achchar. That will have to wait as the host announces the arrival of the prince of all desserts — palada pradhaman. Both the leaves in front of the ‘K’s look a bit fatigued at the continuous onslaught.

The ‘K’s turn up the ends of the leaf in anticipation of a watery treat. To their surprise, the consistency of the payasam is excellent, and the golden pink colour a sight to behold. Being far away from Kerala, it is difficult to get proper ada to make the payasam. Ada comes in varying sizes and thicknesses. To get the right consistency, the thickness of the ada in the pradhaman has to be correct. The hostess has received her ada by personal courier. Extra marks for that, agree both ‘K’s.

Eating most payasams from the flatness of the ela requires excellent practice. The palm sort of hovers over it and spins the payasam. When the hand comes up, a big spoonful of payasam gets trapped in the palm. It goes into the mouth, and the palm also gets licked clean, sometimes till the end of the elbow. The ‘K’s wonder if this payasam might be the best of the season. Bonus marks. One more round of payasam. A sure sign to the hostess that the payasam may have done the trick.

The rice, curds and pappadam at the end of it all satiate their appetite for the day. “Not a bad start to the season,” concurs K2. The first Vishusadya receives 45 points. Five more to go thinks the like-minded ‘K’s.

Their favourite topic for spring will be the various Vishusadyas, until Onam [that’s another story.] Criticism and praise alternates between burps and snores. Besides, they have to decide on the winner too. For now, the season has only started.

*Notes:

• Vishu falls on Malayalam month 1st Medam; it could be on 14th of 15th April
• To see the Vishukkani, the lady of the house gets up first and leads family members blindfolded to see the objects on display; all desirable objects for the rest of the year; usually light lamps, food items, cash, gold, clothes, and more.
• Mallu is short for Malayalee, a Keralite
• Trichur is a city in Kerala
• A karanavar is the eldest male member of the family.
• More on Kerala