Bangalore's Synonymous for Bond 'a' Soup

For some reason last evening, the topic of Bondsoup and blogging was brought up while we were sitting at Kaati zone, Koramangla. While most of us were barely in our senses having been on the 3rd floor of Rockin' People just a couple of hours before the discussion, one could forgive the birthday girl Sri for questioning with a deep sense of ignorance on how blog templates could be changed! The answer to that was that, firstly, you've got to have a blog. And then you need to sign in.

I would joke to the extent that the initials in his name (BS) stood for Bonda Soup. While the less naive laughed it off, few others wondered if his parents were the kinds that were influenced by the parents of WWE stars. If a parent could name their kid Undertaker or Beefcake Barber, I don't think his parents were that cruel to me. But that is hardly the point here. My calling, as I understand, is to put Bonda Soup on the World map. I mean, the dish Bonda Soup.

Mumbai has the vada-pav. For Kolkatta, it's the Rossogulla. Hyderabad for biryani. Chennai for idlly-vada (said very fast almost in a monosyllable). And if you come to think of it, there is no dish synonymous with Bengaluru. Why not bondasoup? The anatomy of the Bonda Soup is real simple: There's a brown coloured almost perfect oval-round (somewhere between oval and round) object, about the size of a Cosco cricket ball; maybe a little smaller than that. And it's swimming in a bath-tub of hot yellow coloured 'soup' sprinkled with generous amounts of coriander, green chilli and jeera. You send the spoon through the brown ball and cut it into small pieces. The inside of the ball is white, but that's before the soup gets the better of it. Once the pieces are floating/ sinking in the bowl of soup, you proceed to finish them off one piece at a time (three at a time if your Satya); and drink up the soup. Fairly simple.

The next time you’re in Bangalore and wondering what to eat at a restaurant, ask for BondaSoup. Say it out loud so that the person at the next table hears you and changes his/her mind. And if we keep doing this, one person at a time, the effect could be cumulative. Let's say you’re lost on a highway in Finland some years down the road. You stop a passing car for a lift till the nearest town. The man in the car speaks broken Ingleesh. You say you’re from India. He's been to India before. You tell him that you work in Bangalore. He looks at you with a big grin and says “Bonda Soupu!”. All you can say then is “YES!”

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