Idli vies with information technology as one of the enduring Indian success stories of globalisation. Its unparalleled conquest occurred silently and went unnoticed even as it was unfolding. Today, there is no continent where you don’t find Idli.

Globalisation didn’t just usher in the Microsofts and the Googles to India. It also brought American corporatised, stock-market-traded food-producing factories like KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Taco Bell. Each spent millions to first study the Indian market before entering it. All of them ultimately ate the humble pie here. Nothing proclaims their admission of defeat more loudly than their India-centric menus. Nowhere else in the world would you see an Ultimate Tandoori Veggie, a Nawabi Murg Makhni, a Dhabe da Kheema, an Indian Tandoori Zinger Burger, an Indian Paneer Zinger Burger, Mazedar Makhni Paneer Pizza, or a Tikka Masala Burrito (veg and non-veg).

All that market-research money, all those ginormous consulting fees given to five-star MBAs from fancy business schools… all that cash burnt to ashes by the Indian “market" which decisively rejected the original menus served in America.

It is a crime of cosmic proportions when we observe that the discerning power of the Indian palate has not been given its due honour. Nothing screams “conviction" louder than the finely-honed Indian taste bud, which singlehandedly brought these gigantic American food chains to their knees in an astonishingly swift time, forcing them to reinvent and Indianise themselves.

But thanks to prolonged colonisation, the average Indian initially attached prestige and glamour value to these........

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