Chennai: For M. Eniyavan, the bland but nutritious idli is more than rice flour and urad dal. He makes numerous varieties of the rice cakes.
“I have made 2,547 varieties of idlis which I displayed at an exhibition,” he said sitting in his office in the Kuppamedu area of Kodungaiyur.
The exhibition was held in 2017 at Raja Annamalai Mandram in Parry’s for which he said he held a record.
Hailing from Coimbatore, he discontinued his studies after Class 8, worked in an eatery and then switched jobs by working as an auto rickshaw driver. One day he saw a woman boarding his auto rickshaw with idli batter and from there came his idea of entering the idli business.
Eniyavan came to Chennai in 1997 with two steamers and an old grinder and started making idlis from a hut in R.K. Nagar. He opened his business, Mallipoo Idli, and makes 30 varieties of idlis like coconut idli, orange idli, apple idli, chocolate idli, raagi idli, pudina idli and pizza idli to name some. His most popular idli is the pizza idli.
The specialty of his idlis is that he does not use oil.
“Idli was given to children once upon a time when mother’s milk was insufficient. It is suitable for all age groups,” says Eniyavan. In fact the idea behind his pizza idli came from his children who one day asked for pizza. He steamed idli batter, added some poriyal and that’s how his pizza idli came into being.
Eniyavan also works as a sub-contractor for 25 to 30 caterers who make food for events like wedding. In 2010 “I made 3,000 pieces of heart-shaped idlis for a wedding, everyone liked it”.
Eniyavan describes how he gets business.
“People contact caterers for making food for events like wedding and they will tell the caterer specifically that they want Eniyavan’s coconut idli and pizza idli. The caterer then informs me.”
Once Eniyavan gets the order, he takes the idli batter to the client’s venue and makes the idlis there. The caterer does not charge him a fee or commission for getting him the business.
Today Eniyavan has 50 people working for him.
“It costs Rs.8,500 to make 1,000 pieces of coconut idli (his most popular idli variant),” he said.
Word spread about his idlis after an exhibition on March 15, 2015 at the Vivekananda Vidyalaya Junior College in Vyasarpadi where he displayed 1,000 varieties.
“Soon people from the area came to the college to see the idlis. Tha Vellaiyan of Traders Association and Tamil Nadu Caterers Labourers Association president Rajamani also came for the exhibition and Rajamani wondered at the varieties of idlis and said there should be a day for idlis and declared March 30 as Idli Day,” he said adding that “March 30 is also my birthday”.
Eniyavan says that from 2015 onwards people especially the Tamil diaspora celebrate World Idli Day by making idlis on that day and distributing them. He said the World Idli Day was observed in Dubai, the US, Russia, Oman and Sri Lanka.
In 2019 to create awareness about the need to vote, he held an idli exhibition at Kasimedu with a finger-shaped idli weighing 50 kg. The exhibition also had 500 varieties of idlis like Mickey Mouse-shaped idli, and butterfly-shaped idli.
“Just like idli is good for health, democracy is good for the nation,” he said.
Note: I wrote this story as part of a class assignment while studying journalism as part of my Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism specialising in Print at the Asian College of Journalism in the city of Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
