The Way to NRI Wallets is Through Their Tummies

My son and his wife, who are in Mysore nowadays, have ordered my wife to close our kitchen for the duration of their stay with us- 'let's order breakfast from Mahesh Prasad, lunch from Ramyas; and go out to dinner at Nalapad, Dasaprakash or where ever'. The directive comes not because our most favoured NRI couple don't fancy my wife's cooking, but because they relish her company more. My wife tends to spend most of her time in the kitchen, when she is not watching a cookery serial on TV.

My son and daughter-in-law, like most NRIs, are not above the fad for spice-and-sambared snacks that restaurants serve. They would drive miles to taste things desi. Their food-driven weekend urge may have to do with their lifestyle in the US - the land of possibilities, pre-cooked food and double-doored fridge with a deep-freeze. There is this other thing that bites people living in America - the fitness bug.

Almost everyone there follows a fitness regime. Even those who, while in India, were devoted to their three-course meal - sambar, rasam and curd rice, and the morning idly-chutney. I can't figure out what happens to them when they go to America. Your flair for spicy food becomes the first casualty of the fitness bug. NRIs who snack to slog at work, Monday through Friday, make a deal of eating out at a desi restaurant every other weekend.

I reckon our Mysore cooks, from Ramya's (butter masala), Mahesh Prasad ( vada-sambar) or Vidyaranyapuram GTR (set-dosa), can make a killing, if only they can relocate themselves to the US, where Indian food joints thrive. In California Bay Area you find Udipi, Woodlands, Bhimas, and Saravanaa Bhavan.

During my last US trip we took a drive to Sunnyvale one evening for an eat-out at Saravanaa's . It was a good 40-minute drive, on a freeway, at 60 mph, from my place, San Ramon. We had to wait for over 30 minutes for a table for four. A dosa and 'vada' each, some sweet and two-by-three coffee (ordered two glasses to be shared among three) set us back by $50 plus.

At Bhima's, Milpitas, they hand you out a 'pager' when you register at the counter and you are paged when a table is ready. There is no getting around the waiting time, particularly during weekends. Of course you can have food sent home through online ordering service - Waiter.com - to which some 25 odd Indian restaurants subscribe. Bhimas and Saravana's are not on this dotcom list. I can understand why. For the more popular among the southie dishes - dosa, sambar-vada - are not amenable to microwaving, as they are best served hot from the restaurant kitchen. Besides the lead time for having your online order home-delivered is 90 minutes. Most of our people don't mind the drive and the wait to have a hot desi meal.

And while you hang out for your table at Sunnyvale Saravanaa's you could browse 'Help Wanted' wall notices in the waiting area. The Saravanaa's wall serves as the Craigslist for the Southies in Sunnyvale, needing 'baby-sitters', part-time help or whatever. Your prayers usually get answered within days. Waiting for a table, you think of your own prayers, for, say, a Hindi tutor, dance teacher, an astrologer who could tell you if your grown up daughter would agree to a arranged marriage or run off with the bloke next door.

I don't know about the way to his heart, but the way to an NRI's wallet is through his stomach. They may be dime a dozen in Mysore, but cooks who can turn out a tasty meal are hard to come by in the 'land of opportunities'. An enterprising mami can find self-employment, if she has a way with the dishes. She can build up a client base of 10 or 15 working NRI couples.The hired cook takes over the kitchen of each client for an evening every week, to cook food needed by the NRI couple for the entire week. The 'mami's sambar, palia and vattha kozhambu can be deep freezed. Cooking for other people's deep-freeze is a cottage industry that can thrive in the US suburbia with sizable Indian population, young, working and pining for home-cooked meal.