Banana Leaf!

Food served in traditional banana leaf had always been delicious, mouth-watering and not to mention an all time favorite for food-lovers or gluttons if you may call in a mean sense.

Well, now there is a controversy, which would pull-up to denote, being a food-lover is nowhere related to being a glutton because for all you know a person who loves food may not necessarily be an over-eater or glutton, but just a person who simply enjoys every fraction of his time spent on admiring & taking-in his food...

Anyways all the controversies apart, the topic of the day is definitely not the one about the hubbub mentioned above but it’s about the scrumptiousness that would make you go crazy over the food that’s been served in front of you in an extremely heartwarming way, much more, to keep you connected to the ethnics that once sunk deep inside you and has now gone astray with the busy race of your (our?!) modern existence!

As a matter-of-fact I would say food always tasted much better than what it had been, when served with all the warmth & hospitability.

There really is a paramount difference in the flavor of the food, based on how hostile or how cordial it’s been served to you!

It's really strange how much one can accomplish by following a simple uncomplicated life. How complicated, needlessly we have made life for ourselves. It really does not matter I guess what you are as long as you are happy.

And to be happy with simple things in life is an art and learning alone wouldn’t suffice, you would have to master the art to live every inch of it!

The threshold of every July, back at home would chime in the arrival of a bunch of festive days to follow bringing in more joyous moments to slurp in the yummy, hot-sweet & hot-spicy food on the traditional serving leaf .

The taste I say is more, in eating that way because it’s more close to being in touch with Mother Nature; you feel you are still a part of the earth and its earliest inmates!

Unsurprisingly, it gives you the fulfillment of having had a good meal, let alone the extra appetizing effect that you get in as a bonus!

More often than not, it impairs the savory of the edibles in an awful manner on a daily routine whenever you are pushed into the trend of having to eat on ceramic plates having to perform a solo hockey or javelin match invariably in a crowd of high-society polished community, or the delirious inhabitants that queue-up with steel-plates in an ostensible middle class canteen/mess.

On that note, one must really be lucky to appreciate the aftertaste that he/she gains, upon eating one of the most sought-after food items of South-India, officially named as “Sugar-Pongal” and practically identified as the brown-colored rice, a residue we get when we boil the rice with milk & jaggery, drenched in ghee & festooned with dry grapes, cashew nuts, Pista and badam… served hot & sizzling on a lush green, garden-fresh banana-leaf , which would in turn cause the green leaf to go black cause of the intense heat radiating from the steaming Pongal – “Man its Heaven!!” is one simple line to explain the feeling on a much precise account!

At that golden moment of ecstasy with your eyes, nose and mouth watering when you take-in the first morsel of the most delightful food, prepared by the world’s best cook – Your Mom (of course)…Gushing out is the feel of paradise and fantasy – Unsurpassed !