Somewhere in the middle of lunch today I went back to every fancy Tamil wedding or reception or puja or ceremony that I've ever attended, because of the aloo chips. So I'm sitting on the floor in the midst of all the food, which is beyond good inspite of my constant snivelling about how it's all vegetarian, and someone comes along and dumps a handful of aloo chips on your leaf. I never questioned it because it always happened, there were chips and pappadums to go with every fancy Tamil meal, just like every Mallu meal brought with it the banana versions (Ok, ha ha). I even vaguely remember this once at Sankara Hall or some place where I came upon an entire steel dabba about half my size, and twice my girth, filled with aloo chips. And Balaji, who was such a constant childhood fixture that he's now a blur, was sitting behind it dipping his hand in and stuffing his face every half a minute, and we sat there unattended and ate quite a bit before someone from the kitchen shooed us away.

They were translucent, and red chilli powdered, and shaped in perfect ovals, but all these are details it's easy to forget. I've had other people wondering at the aloo chips tradition too, the weirdness of it transcends a lot of other weirdnesses because if you grow up eating chips with main meals and then see them at movies, things you just pass time with, well. And ever since Chitti and Chittapa moved to Trichy the Tamil side's been cowed and wrapped up and stored away and there are no more functions to attend and no more banana leaves to eat off, but today at lunch, which wasn't really a Tamil meal but who cares, out came a packet of chips.

Lake Market? I ask. Eat, my mum says. And so it is. I crush one chip into the rice and feel strangely fuzzy, I guess it's the inexplicableness of it that stays, and permeates, and creates this glow. And so it is, I realise I can almost forgive the vegetarianism.