This Tamil restaurant in Chandigarh refuses to sweeten its sambar

Nine out of his 10 customers are North Indian. Gunasekaran P still refuses to sweeten the sambarAt four in the morning, when Chandigarh’s grid of sectors is still a diagram of empty roundabouts, the lights come on in a kitchen in Sector 46. Someone is at the market, turning over drumsticks and pumpkin with the suspicion of a man who has been cheated before. By seven the first idlis are off the steamer.“When we came here, hotels opened at 11 in the morning,” says Gunasekaran P, 43, founder of Karthik South Indian Restaurant. “We started at seven. Now many others also open early.”Over 90% of the people eating in his 10 -odd outlets across Chandigarh and Ludhiana are North Indian. That number tells you the story of Karthik Mess — which became Karthik South Indian Restaurant; because unlike most South Indian restaurants in the North, this one refuses to sweeten its sambar.The last day of schoolHe was 12 when he stopped being a schoolboy. It was 1994, and he was in Class VI at Mallankinaru, a village in Virudhunagar district, where the rain is a rumour and the only prospects were farming and the matchbox industry. Drought had settled in, and the family decided Delhi would take him.His mathematics teacher argued with his parents that the boy was doing well. The argument was lost. The clothes that the teacher bought him came to Delhi.He arrived in Lajpat Nagar to one of the hundred-odd South Indian hotels run by men from his district. He began as a dishwasher, and for seven years, was not allowed to cook.“The masters have to be pleased with you. They handpick those they want to teach.” Gunasekaran’s co-workers told him. So he watched. Then one day the master did not turn up. When the hotel was desperate, the dishwasher stepped up to the stove and cooked as though he had been doing it for years, which, in his head, he had.He left the hotel in 2004. At the time, his salary was ₹300.Why Chandigarh?The idea of Chandigarh came from a customer-turned-friend — the city had few South Indian hotels, a steady demand for the cuisine, and a Tamil population already decades old.When the Air Force’s 3-Base Repair Depot went to Chandigarh instead of Tamil Nadu, says SP Rajasekaran, general secretary, Chandigarh Tamil Sangam, approximately 3,000 to 5,000 South Indians came to the city for Union Territory departmental jobs, several of them as Class IV employees in the PWD. The community now has an estimated 1.5 lakh people.“Karthik Restaurant has become the identity of Tamils in Chandigarh,” says Rajasekaran. “Any Tamil who migrates here doesn’t just get food, they get a connection to the Sangam.”Gunasekaran went to the Karthikeyan temple in Sector 31 and was directed to a rented space in Sector 46. On October 27, 2005, a roadside eatery selling idli, dosa and vada opened there. The second came only in 2012. His two younger brothers eventually joined him after studying Hotel Management.The sambar argument“For the first six or seven years, it was very difficult,” Gunasekaran says. “Customers would say this is not the taste they get in other South Indian hotels. It’s either too sweet or too sour.” . They said, spicy bahut hai.Gunasekaran adjusted, but only so far. No garlic. No onion. Less chilli than a Tamil household would use. Occasionally pumpkin, for mildness rather than sweetness. The result still tastes of Tamil Nadu. “Now, if we make a mistake, it is the customers who point it out”, he said.There is another insistence: eat with your hand. Our staff tell customers who come here, “Only if you eat with your hand will the taste be cherished.” For many North Indian customers, that was unfamiliar. They ate sambar with spoons. At Karthik Mess, customers who once arrived with spoons now put them down and eat with their hands.His brother, Surendran P, has blended the masalas for two decades, grinding them in-house. “We mix by hand. We don’t buy from outside and we don’t stock it.” The cooks are largely Tamils from Gunasekaran’s hometown, and the servers are hired locally.Almost everything else travels from Tamil Nadu — rice, appalam and banana leaves from Madurai; coconut from Pollachi; wood-pressed oil from Virudhunagar; filter coffee from Chennai. “Not every Tamil Nadu rice suits this water,” Gunasekaran says.He rarely sits still. Each outlet handles at least 500 bills a day, keeping him between kitchens, suppliers, staff and customers.Rajendar Prasad, a retired Union Government employee, and his wife Rajini have been coming here for 20 years. “It is light food. Even children who don’t touch vegetables will eat them in sambar. Punjabi food is heavier.”Students from IIT Ropar and Panjab University turn up, as do PGI doctors and Air Force personnel. Every Wednesday, annadhaanam is served at the temple.Twenty years after opening his first roadside eatery, most of Gunasekaran’s customers are still not Tamil. The boy who was not allowed to cook now decides what a city eats for breakfast.