Last year while we were walking down the Boat Jetty lane in Cochin we saw this larger than life size cut outs of one of the popular Malayalam movie hero in police uniform and my wife said “see now we too have huge cutouts like in Tamil Nadu”
As I did not attach much importance to these cutouts I did not click it.
Now see how things work out. A few days later, when I was seated in the train (on my way back to Pune from Cochin) one hefty tall guy came and sat opposite me. His face looked familiar.. So I got out on the platform and called Marie (wifey) and asked her who the guy was in the cutout. She said it was Suresh Gopi. Then I checked the reservation chart pasted on the side of the train and it WAS Suresh Gopi. I told Marie about it and she went all ga ga and asked me to ask him the recipe that he showed on TV about the Payasam !! I said that I am not going to do any such thing. (asking for an autograph is OK but Recipe ?)
The first thing that he did was take out his cigarette packet and lighter and keep it out. Now this is asking for trouble as I am a person who will not allow anyone to smoke in front of me, star or no star. So I was mentally preparing myself for the showdown.
But he took the pack and went out. So that saved him (or me, from the dishum dishum that was to follow)
Once he was back and the train moved, I found that we were the only two in the coupe (2nd AC) where there were supposed to be four. Now that made me brave (about the recipe)
I asked him where he was planning to get down so that I would be aware when other passengers get in. (I am vary about people walking away with my luggage when I am sleeping)
Then I blurted out the truth. “sorry I don’t see much Malayalam films so did not know exactly who you are but your face looked familiar like the larger than life cut outs so I went out and asked my wife about the person in the cutout. . . . checked the reservation chart etc etc and she also wanted to know the recipe” (all in one breath)
It would have been adding insult to injury if I told him that the only Malayalam heroes that I know were Mohanlal, Mamooty, Sreenivasan and Innocent. (in that order)
He was good enough to explain it to me. “That is very simple, first you make small unni appams and before you serve the payasam. . . .. .” Now when I found that he was explaining everything in detail, I told him I won’t be able to retain all these so can he tell this to my wife. I connected Marie on my cell phone and gave it to him. So he started explaining all over again on the phone to her. Unfortunately when the recipe was half way through the train moved into a no range zone and the phone got cut. As he was eager to continue, the second half was explained to me. So that’s the end of ever making it at home as the second half has gone into thin air. (you see I am sure I am the first one to get Dementia in my family and that applies here too)
But there are two things that I observed about this super star Gopi . One, he has no airs about being a star. The second being that he is very passionate about cooking and good food.
The end result was that we chatted for some time and he was talking mostly about food and cooking. (contd - - - -part II)
