Blame it all on the late Chief. The Man from Madras Musings, like the evil vizier, kept warning him that consequences would be dire. But no, the Chief, like Good King Wenceslaus had to step high, wide, and plentiful. And like Amma canteens, we at MM have Muthiah Munchings – food for all during Madras Week. To some it would seem it was a Madras Week Food Festival.
Madras Week Food Festival – The Origins
The Chief, good man that he was, assumed that people would line up in orderly fashion, take an item or two on to plates, and peck at them delicately, rather like at one of those garden parties organised by the late Queen at ol’ Buck ‘Ouse. He did not even imagine that the atmosphere would be more like a food riot. Of course, he did live to see many Madras Weeks and noticed what was going on but beyond sniffing disapprovingly he chose to ignore what he saw. The hotels provided the food pontificated the Chief, and the good people ate well. He did not appreciate it when MMM pointed out to him that this came under the head of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or since we live in times when quotations Biblical raise hackles, shall we say taking coconut from a shop and offering it to a wayside elephant-headed God?
Madras Week Food Festival or Bacchanalia?
And so, Madras Week at MM has come to mean eight talks on the side, with a bacchanalia of food as the main item on the agenda. Not everyone behaves that way mind you. But there are a dedicated set of people who swoop down on the hotel like Assyrians and devour everything in sight. They seem to have stomachs of cast iron – for no alimentary canal can withstand that scale of feeding eight days at a stretch. But they managed it very well indeed.
The Food Foragers
There have been changes – among the old lot very few are left. Mammoth does put in an occasional appearance but gone forever it would seem are Chimpanzee, Owl, Fox and Vulture. MMM misses them for they were models of good behaviour when compared to those who have replaced them. There is Wolf, who all grey locks, flowing beard and ash would pass off as someone who has long given up on the fleshpots of life. But not so this one.
He is an advance guard – he always made it a point to arrive early, grimace at MMM (he has always had a strong dislike of MMM, and the feeling is reciprocated in full) and then make a quick survey of what is on offer. He would then call all his friends over cell and inform them of the menu and invite them to come over as though he was throwing a party. And sure enough, his fellow barbarians, who it would seem were skulking somewhere close by, would descend in full force and make a clean sweep of it. MMM has named him Wolf chiefly because of his fondness for hunting in packs.Â
The Kangaroo at the Madras Week Food Festival
If Wolf was bad enough, Kangaroo was worse. He believed in packing things away for a rainy day. MMM somehow missed noticing his depredations, but the man had the misfortune to come under the gaze of MMM’s good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed. Now She, unlike MMM is a person with an eye like Mars, to threaten and command and when she came across Kangaroo packing water bottles away in a bag and also cookies in a handkerchief, all was so to speak revealed.
As it was quoted in Wren and Martin, the wretched man was fully conscious of his position. MMM’s Good Lady asked Kangaroo as to what he was doing. Whereupon he unpacked all the water bottles and abandoned the hanky with the cookies and left. Before leaving he gave MMM a look of commiseration but then MMM did not need that. He is the kind that works better under an eye that threatens and commands.Â
This article appeared in Madras Musings dated October 1, 2024 and can be read here
My book, Chennai, A Biography can be ordered here