All rise!... and a little bit Sambar.

Much like most South Indian families, all of us including the German Shepherd were brought up on rice.

I understand it's wondrous versatility. A meal that did not have an allotropic modification of good clean white rice was certainly not satisfactory and generally proscribed. I remember a particular "very tamilian" friend of mine who after finishing off 200% of a KFC zinger burger meal, four slices of pizza and two softee ice-cream units. (A bangalorean will recognise that we were on Brigade road, walking downhill from MG road. )

Went home that evening to elicit genuine pity from his mother that he had survived all afternoon on nothing but bread.
Rice is bankable currency. It's value dearer than mere nutrition.

The group that I live with takes their eating seriously. A genuine reason for gripe amongst most of the crew at the end of the first week was that motivation was impossible to muster when they were being subjected to the punitive encumbrance of dealing with the rice available in Kerala.

"Sir, What kind of rice it is here! Full quarter inch outer-dia.!"

By the miracle of modern day lorry technology an emergency ration of high quality rice worthy of a Bengalooroo-ean was imported from back home. When I say emergency ration I don't mean survival packets like the Cadburys, Fruit and Nut gift pack I got shipped to myself by Fabmall.com; but those gigantic bags of food that find themselves hurtling out of B-52 bombers at small impoverished famine stricken African nations.

I am informed that the the first consignment of 30 kilograms; the approximate weight of the treasury of the small impoverished famine stricken African nation, was consumed in all of ten days at one meal a day. So if one were to work out the energetics of our consumption, assuming the thermodynamic calorific value of cooked rice at, 611Kcal/100gm, then the crew is burning an astounding 8125 watt-hours a day just to survive! Now I am not sure but fairly certain that is more than the power generation capacity of any small impoverished famine stricken African nation.
You know you are leading a life of decadence when a East Somalian wall socket can't sustain you.

Well anyway, I am also mildly amused by the tacit feudal order that seems to have established itself at the dinner table. You have the imperial bourgeois class of one, V. Dhamodaran, executor of the funding requirements of all and sundry. Whose monetary munificence determines if one gets 7 parottas or 12 for breakfast, or if one is scheduled to the kerala "quarter inch" rice or treated to the "“sona masoori". The rest of the crew is nested around his omnipotence in a hive like system. It is efficient and it ensures everybody gets some sambar when they need it.
And is - some would argue- exactly what is needed in most small impoverished famine stricken African nations.