This time, it was painfully clear I
wouldn't be adding much to my collection. Very few stalls still
remained, and the survivors seemed to deal exclusively in out-of-date
textbooks. Nothing was left of the glorious eclectic chaos
of my student days. This didn't help my mood
any. It made me even more oblivious to to how
much I walked, or where I was headed. So I was not really surprised
when I eventually washed up across the road from Hudson Circle,
about twice the distance from Majestic as Avenue Road is. According to taxiautofare.com,
I had walked nearly three kilometres
from where I had started out. Without any discernible purpose in mind,
or any clue what I was doing there, or for that matter any dimunition
in the
blackness of my mood.
So I decided to check out a little Tibetan joint I had once spotted thereabouts. There was a little problem: I had no idea where the place was. Back then I had managed to catch only a brief glimpse through the recesses of a fast-moving autorickshaw, and my rudimentary knowledge of Bangalore geography meant I could not identify the locality. All I remembered was that the restaurant had a Tibetan name, and it was on a road with an English-sounding name that began with an L. Fortunately the wife happened to call just then, and I was able to ask her. Her guess was, it might be Langford Road but she couldn't be too sure - in any case Langford was a fair distance from where I was. No matter, halfway through her admonitions I had already started plodding off. In due course I reach Langford Road, still on foot, crossed St Joseph's College. By this time I had clocked 5.68 kilometres, or sixty-three Rupees in auto fare. But surprise! there it was, Tshela Anze, the place I was looking for!
The signboard was a delight. It said, "T Selha-Anze - Tibetan
Restaurant", and then for good measure added in parentheses, "Our
Grandmother's Recipe [sic]".
Incidentally, it was only here that the T and the S were separated by a
space. All other places, including the dine-in and takeaway menus, had
the name spelt "Tshela-Anze", hyphenated but minus the gap. The name
itself bore much promise. I reasoned that only someone who knew his
mind would start in the heart of Bangalore a restaurant with a name so offbeat
(and so awkward to pronounce). And with a little luck, this force of
character might rub off on the menu too.
Neither did the interior disappoint. It was airy, uncluttered, done up in
nice, bright
colours, free of piped music and Tibetan kitsch - assorted masks, brass
idols, prayer wheels,
that sort of thing - generally managing to
look austere and comfortable at the same time. Two large windows
looking out onto the street added to the airiness. The walls were
sparsely decorated: a portrait of the Dalai Lama over the counter; a
few Tibet-related pictures and wall hangings here and there; and
in one corner a stunning Kandinsky poster, nothing more. So was the
furniture comfortable but spartan, tending to granite-topped tables and
metal dining chairs.
The kind of
place college students on a tight budget could and did frequent.
Placing an order was a little tricky. The waiters'
English skills and familiarity with the menu are both rudimentary, and
the management knows this. So they get the waiters to go to each table
with a pad and pen, and then ask customers to themselves jot down what
they want. The trouble was, the menu merely listed the
dishes without explaining what they were. So I went over and talked to
the youngish gentleman sitting behind the counter. Tenzin, as he was
called, turned out to be a delight to talk to. He was more than happy
to guide me across the menu, and throw in his own suggestions without
insisting on them. Even the waiters were a cheerful bunch as such, and
promptly obliged minor requests like extra cutlery and glasses of
water.
I found the menu fascinating. A sociologist could extract from it enough material for a brace of scholarly articles. Why, for instance, does it feature so many Chinese preparations, the cuisine of those who dispossessed them from their homeland? Customer demand solely? Is this demand itself fuelled by stereotyped perceptions of all Mongoloid races as "Chinkies", and hence Chinese food purveyors? Which raises the question, how do they reconcile their cultural identity with this forced acquiescence in two monstrous generalisations, namely (a) conflating Tibetan with Chinese, their oppressors; and (b) the indiscriminate "Chinky"-fication of Mongoloid ethnic groups generally? In any case, it is clear that the Chinese offerings are not dictated by any especial love for the cuisine. The items listed were run-of-the mill Indianised aberrations, including the Gobi Manchury Bangalore is notorious for and which I defy any self-respecting Chinese to claim for their culture.
[Explanatory note for the uninitiated: Chicken Manchurian is made by coating chicken in cornflour, then frying it in ginger, garlic, green chilli, soya sauce, and usually copious amounts of MSG. It was supposedly invented back in the mid-'70s by Nelson Wang, a Calcutta Chinese chef, which makes it about as authentic Chinese as Dr. Fu Manchu. Gobi Manchury or Manjoori (as it's usually spelled in Bangalore) is a vegetarian iteration, substituting the chicken with cauliflour. At least the Tselha-Anze people had the decency to call it "Cauliflour Manchurian".
[Continued in Part II]
So I decided to check out a little Tibetan joint I had once spotted thereabouts. There was a little problem: I had no idea where the place was. Back then I had managed to catch only a brief glimpse through the recesses of a fast-moving autorickshaw, and my rudimentary knowledge of Bangalore geography meant I could not identify the locality. All I remembered was that the restaurant had a Tibetan name, and it was on a road with an English-sounding name that began with an L. Fortunately the wife happened to call just then, and I was able to ask her. Her guess was, it might be Langford Road but she couldn't be too sure - in any case Langford was a fair distance from where I was. No matter, halfway through her admonitions I had already started plodding off. In due course I reach Langford Road, still on foot, crossed St Joseph's College. By this time I had clocked 5.68 kilometres, or sixty-three Rupees in auto fare. But surprise! there it was, Tshela Anze, the place I was looking for!
The signboard was a delight. It said, "T Selha-Anze - Tibetan
Restaurant", and then for good measure added in parentheses, "Our
Grandmother's Recipe [sic]".
Incidentally, it was only here that the T and the S were separated by a
space. All other places, including the dine-in and takeaway menus, had
the name spelt "Tshela-Anze", hyphenated but minus the gap. The name
itself bore much promise. I reasoned that only someone who knew his
mind would start in the heart of Bangalore a restaurant with a name so offbeat
(and so awkward to pronounce). And with a little luck, this force of
character might rub off on the menu too. 
Placing an order was a little tricky. The waiters'
English skills and familiarity with the menu are both rudimentary, and
the management knows this. So they get the waiters to go to each table
with a pad and pen, and then ask customers to themselves jot down what
they want. The trouble was, the menu merely listed the
dishes without explaining what they were. So I went over and talked to
the youngish gentleman sitting behind the counter. Tenzin, as he was
called, turned out to be a delight to talk to. He was more than happy
to guide me across the menu, and throw in his own suggestions without
insisting on them. Even the waiters were a cheerful bunch as such, and
promptly obliged minor requests like extra cutlery and glasses of
water.I found the menu fascinating. A sociologist could extract from it enough material for a brace of scholarly articles. Why, for instance, does it feature so many Chinese preparations, the cuisine of those who dispossessed them from their homeland? Customer demand solely? Is this demand itself fuelled by stereotyped perceptions of all Mongoloid races as "Chinkies", and hence Chinese food purveyors? Which raises the question, how do they reconcile their cultural identity with this forced acquiescence in two monstrous generalisations, namely (a) conflating Tibetan with Chinese, their oppressors; and (b) the indiscriminate "Chinky"-fication of Mongoloid ethnic groups generally? In any case, it is clear that the Chinese offerings are not dictated by any especial love for the cuisine. The items listed were run-of-the mill Indianised aberrations, including the Gobi Manchury Bangalore is notorious for and which I defy any self-respecting Chinese to claim for their culture.
[Explanatory note for the uninitiated: Chicken Manchurian is made by coating chicken in cornflour, then frying it in ginger, garlic, green chilli, soya sauce, and usually copious amounts of MSG. It was supposedly invented back in the mid-'70s by Nelson Wang, a Calcutta Chinese chef, which makes it about as authentic Chinese as Dr. Fu Manchu. Gobi Manchury or Manjoori (as it's usually spelled in Bangalore) is a vegetarian iteration, substituting the chicken with cauliflour. At least the Tselha-Anze people had the decency to call it "Cauliflour Manchurian".
[Continued in Part II]
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