Mallu

Yesterday Shaiwal mentioned there was another Indian store in Edinburgh other than the two we already knew about. Since I needed a few pulses and masala’s I decided to set out to discover it. I should have realised when I saw the name that it would have something to do more with South India than North India. The name of the store is Janatha stores with an ‘H’. :)

Well it seemed quite near on Google maps so I dispensed with the bus and instead walked, boy my legs lay testament to that walk!!! I think I could have cut them off yesterday and the rest of my body would have been singing Hallelujah.

Once I reached I was a bit taken aback to see a few Kerala brands like Melam pickles, double horse iddiyapam mix, puttu mix and palappam mix….so on so forth. I was even more taken aback to see a sign written in Malayalam pointing to where the beef was!!! I was in familiar territory. :)

Turns out that the owner is from Trivandrum and has been running the shop for 4 and a half years now. I checked with him on the job scene and moaned about me not able to get even an interview going. Well, it was nice to meet a new person and talk a bit in Malayalam. :)

He showed two newspapers which were meant for the Indian community and which were free. I picked a copy each and was happy to read it all of yesterday night. It was a bit of old news but still it was Indian news. Had articles like Indian Student Visa Racket busted. Oh and my favourite article, a lady was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing her husband using an ancient Indian poisonous herb found in the foothills of Himalayas. The herb as per mythology is what caused Lord Shiva to have a blue neck!!! Whoaaaa heavy stuff!! :D

One of the newspapers “Kerala Link” is for the malayalee’s and it had a few articles written in Malayalam too, seems the newspaper has been in circulation for 15 years now! Cool eh?