Whenever someone mentions Indian food, the mind points towards a banana leaf meal. Yes, the meal designed by the folks from the Indian subcontinent to make you a slave to your tongue at first, then regret the whole episode after being reminded of how much calories had been taken in.

Clog, you damn arteries. CLOG!!!!!

One way to enjoy banana leaf meals is the traditional way. These can usually be very common in rural areas and not so much in urban areas because urbanites like me and you are lazy fucks and prefer to get a crappy catering service to open up a buffet line in your flat in the middle of KL with elevators that smell like piss. Yes, banana leaf meals require a helluva lot of work to be done, no doubt, BUT, the togetherness that comes with it is simply non-substitutable with any buffet line. The leaf is laid out, with your guest grinning from ear to ear. You start shouting to your cousin at the other end of the tent, asking him to bring in the vegetables. You proceed to dish out rice, while your guest says “Enough, enough….”, but you just go on, telling him to eat more this one day, and stop after he says “Enough” for the 14th time.

Your cousin arrives with the vege, and you go hunting for the curry bucket. On the way, you see your dad’s close friend washing his hand after the dinner. You ask him whether did he enjoy the food, then ask about his family, and say thank you for his attendance, all in 7 seconds flat before rushing to rushing to the guest you left behind with the curry bucket. Relatives and friends walk up to you saying that they had a good time, not to mention the good food. You are happy that everyone has eaten to their heart’s content. Though you are dog tired, it was all worth it. As soon as you’re done, you catch glimpse of the girl you’ve been having an eye on during the whole function. She walks past you, head lowered in shyness. You smile at her. She smiles back. You smile to yourself. That’s how traditional banana leaf meals are.

NOT this kind of Indian girl

And then of course you can head out to the regular curry houses which are aplenty all over town to get your fix of banana leaf rice. Just a reminder: eat with your hands. Don’t use cutlery on a banana leaf. You risk tearing the leaf. And it’s just not right. Just dive in with your hands. Get into the culture, as they say.

So these days the curry houses have a section where they’ll fry some meat and fish for you to be served piping hot. When you order something from there, make sure you tell them to add more “masala”. Just do it, don’t ask why. It is customary to have at least two helpings of rice. Most Indians are bloody gluttons whenever they step into a curry house anyways. After you’re done eating, swipe the leaf with your fingers and give it a thorough lick. No one would comment negatively if you pour a bit of chicken curry on an empty leave and proceed to have a lick-off.

Now, for all you non-Indians out there who don’t actually know what to have on your leaf before you start digging in, here’s a free tutorial.

1. Order your fried item before calling for the rice. Don’t choose the biggest fish there. Medium-sized and small-sized ones are tastier. Ask for more “masala“. If you’re getting fried squid or chicken, ask more extra onions as well.
2. The customary rice + 3 or 4 vegetable dishes. Pretty simple. It is advisable to take half the amount of rice you’re planning to eat. Reason to follow. You may opt for the healthier Indian rice (pu-lung-ge a-re-si).
3. The curry. You’ll have the usual one: dhal (sambhar), chicken curry, fish curry. Some shops sometimes have special curries stored away and they will only bring them out if customers ask for them. You may ask if they have crab curry (nan-du ka-ri), onion curry (ven-the-ya ko-lam-bu), or salted-fish curry (ka-ru-vaa-du ka-ri).
4. Divide your rice into 2 portions, and have different curries poured into each one to guarantee that you will taste everything. Once you’re done, ask for the second helping of rice, and proceed with different curries. Sloppiness is never an issue.
5. The condiments arrive. The regulars are papadam (ap-pa-lam in Tamil) and fried bitter gourd (paa-vak-kaa). You can also ask for the fried chili (mo-ru mo-le-ga). There’s also the option of asking for some “thovaiyal“, a spicy, minty, sour paste that you can eat with your rice.
6. Next on the list – yoghurt. Now, there’s two versions of it. One to drink, one to put on your rice. The drinking variety is called “moru” – yoghurt mixed with water, onions, coriander and some spices. A glass of iced moru on a hot day will do good for you.. The one that you put on your rice is called “tairu“. Tairu goes very well with any spicy curry, but fish curry leads the pack. A very common way of eating tairu is to mix it with plain rice, add a little salt, then having the “moru molaga” (fried chili) on the side.
7. You can also ask for some herbal soup – rasam. This will be served usually in a small tumbler and it’s quite spicy. Mix it up with your index finger and drink it, or pour it on your rice and eat with it.
8. Once you’re done wolfing down everything, fold the leave inwards to indicate the food was good (we still do that even if the food was bad coz we’re not a bunch of assholes).
9. Order a cup of BRU coffee. Not regular coffee. But BRU coffee. Every respectable Indian food establishment will have BRU coffee. If they don’t, you’ve obviously went to a bad place. Get your BRU coffee with cow’s milk if you fancy it.
10. Burp.

REMINDER: Woman does not come with the coffee.

Of course you can opt for other meals like the chapati or puri or naan. Then ask for some mutton varuval. Or mutton curry for that matter. Briyani rice is also an option for those who want to pig out on a completely different level. Don’t get your briyani at those nasi kandar shops where they only have the briyani rice laced with some herbs. A true briyani rice must be cooked with the meat in it, and should be served with the meat together.

Oh, there’s also this crazy thing among Malaysian Indians (or for any Indians for that matter) when it comes to eating mutton. We love to eat bone marrow. If your curry house offers mutton curry, ask them for a bone that you can suck the marrow out along with the meat chunks. Mutton curry is best eaten wit long beans or pineapple-cucumber salad. Don’t use a fucking straw to suck out the bone marrow lest you wanna be known as a pussy. You may bang the bone on your leaf (which of course is laid out on your table). People won’t mind. Really.

Bone. Delicious bone.

Indian food also has a wide array of sweets for those who aspire to be diabetic one day. Choices range from the halwa, gulab jamun, mysoorpak, jilebi, laddu, paalkova and athirasam (also known as ‘kuih peniram’ in Malay). You can almost always find these in established curry houses, but for better tasting ones, you can head to a shop that specializes in selling indian sweets.

“Laddu” inside your arteries. Awesome.

So that’s pretty much it about Malaysian Indian food. I’m just writing this because I’ve nothing else better to do at this point. I need a BRU coffee now.

PS: This post might seem to be biased towards South Indian food. That’s because I don’t fancy going to pimped out North Indian restaurants that charge RM 30 for a fucking small pot of mutton curry.

Related posts:

1. A Seedy Guide to Malaysian Indians – The Culture
2. A Seedy Word Known as “Keling”
3. More Malaysian Graph-ical Madness

Being a Malaysian Indian, you can’t help being viewed in public in a stereotyped manner. Nah, I’m not talking about the famous potrayals of the drunken wife-beater image. I’m talking about the wonderful kinks that are prevalent amongst the Malaysian Indian community itself. The kind of things that when it is happening, you can’t help but to break a smile and shake your head. You complain about it, but in your heart, you never want it to be over. What is it about us?

The Malaysian Indian culture is very much different from our ancestral home, England. Err I mean India. What better place to learn about the Indian culture if not for an Indian weddings?

My ancestor. Lord Blackballs

Forget Malaysian timing. The Indian timing is far superior (in a warped sense). You’ll receive a wedding invitation for 7.30pm. We Indian men have to pester our wives, girlfriends, mothers or sisters to get ready ASAP while they were deciding on whether to wear 5 kilos or 7 kilos of jewelery. Your battalion (yes, Indians call big groups of other Indians a battalion) arrives there at 8pm to find yourself being among the first 10 or 20 people there who end up waiting till 8.45 for the actual ceremony to start.

All the jewelery and saree shops from Jalan Tengku Kelana, Klang (Rembau Street) have their representatives there, judging by the amount of gold necklaces and rings and “pattu” sarees present. As as soon as the groom ties the 3rd knot on the “thali”, you’d be fighting with 200 grown men and women to get in queue for the buffet line. Then you’d be fighting with another 100 people to get in the queue to give your gifts or envelopes to the newly married couple. Ahhhhh… aren’t weddings beautiful?

Jalan Tengku Kelana, Klang. You can either rob this place, or any indian wedding scene. No difference.

Ever went to an Indian cultural show in any of Malaysia’s premier (or lowly) universities? Probably the main reason young adult males flock there is to feast their eyes upon young adult females. You’d see immaculately dressed men (pressed shirts and pants, with blazers) together with idiotically dressed men (bleached hair contrasting a dark complexion, silver studs, red or yellow shirt, faded jeans and Ronald MacDonald shoes)  trying to swoon glamorous ladies while the performance music is blasting your eardrums to Mars.

The performances lined up are spectacular, to say the least. You have one measly Bharathanatyam dance for 10 minutes, followed by an hour and a half of Malaysia’s finest Tamil hip-hop outfits. Very cultural indeed. Oh, did I forget the customary samba rock song from The Keys towards the end of the show? But you never stop to think twice, because it is our brand of entertainment, and God forbid you should ever deny them. You end up having a blast at the show and go home happily.

A must-have for cultural events.

Indians love going on vacations. My dad has a dream vacation like most of the members of his generation. Nope, it’s not sauntering in Paris cafes with the Eiffel Tower as the ultimate backdrop. It’s taking a flight to India, hopping on a rickety bus with 20 other people and go for a tour of the great temples of India (with him being a Hindu). Everyone comes back home a month later with a broken foot or hand after being trampled by the vicious mob there. They also would gladly give bribes to temple guards to give them “express” access for prayers, yet come home complaining how the police here took 50 bucks from them as “duit kopi”. How many elderly Malaysian Indians have that dream? More than half of the population, I’d say.

I simply do not understand when someone calls that a “vacation”. But we, as their children, have the unwritten rule and  “duty” to send them on such a pilgrimage. And no matter how much you’d think that was a stupid endeavour, at the end, no matter what, you’d have a sense of pride on your accomplishment. That can never be understood, and there is no need to. Thank God AirAsia now has a lot of Indian routes.

My dream vacation. Amsterdam. This is how you window-shop. Legalized prostitution. And Weed. But hey, that’s just me.

The education culture among Malaysia Indians is still something very important. I’d bring back home a 98% on my maths test, and I get the best congratulatory wish ever. “What happenned to that other 2%?” Yeah, I know. It’s priceless. You get 2nd place among 40 students, and they ask you, “Why cannot get No.1?” I’m all smiles now. We all know now that they were proud at that moment. You should’ve heard your grandma tell the neighbour about her grandson. 3 months later, a relative that you’ve never seen before comes before you at a wedding, pinches your chubby cheek, and exclaims “OOOOoo…. such a smart kid…! You got 98% for maths huh? Gooooood. Wanna become an engineer when you grow up?” . Most Malaysian Indians only know of 3 jobs that can guarantee you a secured future: doctor, engineer, and lawyer. At least that’s what most grandmothers think.

Come home with me. My grandma would love you and ignore me.

Stay tuned for the next part of the seedy guide to Malaysian Indians.

Related posts:

1. A Seedy Guide to Malaysian Indians – The Food
2. A Seedy Word Known as “Keling”
3. More Malaysian Graph-ical Madness