Adai's with Grace

My friend Magiceye not only enjoys the various varieties of south Indian Crepe/dosa varieties, he has the patience to actually click deliciously focussed pictures , before getting mobilized to devour the stuff.

Adai's are  a special variety of high protein crepes or dosas, not as thin as the standard dosas that are even stiff at times.   Three types of lentils, and rice, soaked for several hours and then ground together with seasonings. Very filling, very traditional and very yum with some terrific chutneys.

A golden happening. And it seems quite possible that the adais got their nomenclature from an urdu word !

Dosabhai,
fresh from worldwide appreciation
tended to forget
his origins
particularly
in the company
of a puffed up Idlibai.

He hadn't counted
on the granddames
of Dosa Society,
who held firm views
on the flibbertigibbet paper dosas,
who always behaved stiffly
and unfriendly,
breaking into pieces
at the slightest movement.

And so arhar amma,
udad amma, and chana amma,
immersed themselves
seriously in the proceedings
and  nicely soaked,
got minutely
crushingly involved,
really mixing well
with
scintillating item numbers
like
salt
red chillies,
bright turmeric,
green curry leaves
and asoefoitida .

A good stir with the ladle,
and its like the
conservative ammas
take a palloo over the other shoulder
maturely leading the way
on to a hot oiled gridle,
to create a
great "adai."

Perhaps
so called
because
it has to do with the
delicate "adaa"'s
displayed
by the ammas.....