Take a walk through London’s East Ham metro station, and you will feel like you have arrived in a street in Chennai! Wherever you go you can hear people speak in Tamil. The smell of incenses and curries is thick in the air. East Ham is dotted with several shops like Vasantha Bhavan and Selva Stores that have quintessential south Indian soul and spirit to them. Unsurprisingly, the quint township is home to the largest Asian population in London.
Take a stroll down the street adjacent to the metro station and you will be distracted by the aroma of authentic cuisine from God's Own Country that fills that air. There are two Kerala restaurants adjacent to each other. The name of one of the eateries – Thattukada - is enough to activate your salivary glands. You get finger-licking-good Kerala food there. The next one – Ananthapuram - flaunts the legacy of Kerala’s capital city in its name.
What they offer is a Kerala experience all the way. The authentic Kerala dishes ranging from Biriyani to traditional sadya served by these outlets have caught the fancy of not only homesick residents, but many locals too.
Though their regular customers are Keralities from in and around East Ham, the last few weeks have witnessed a sudden spurt in demand, thanks to cricket buffs who travelled all the way from Kerala to London to watch the ICC World Cup.
“They all return fully satisfied,” says Biju Gopinath, proprietor of ‘Thattukada’. Biju, who hails from Kumarapuram in Thiruvananthapuram, has been in this business for 12 years. Among his regular customers are Poonjar native Vinod Navadhara, a music teacher, and Manjeri native advocate Afsal.
Most of them are desperate to get tickets for India’s upcoming matches. The tickets were sold out long ago and even now, there's a crazy demand. Tickets are available in the black market, but one will have to pay through the nose to buy them. However, they are not ready to give up and are determined to watch as many matches as possible.
The situation is more or less similar in Ananthapuram too. The hotel is packed and buzzing. A group of Tamil-speaking people are there to enjoy the special biriyani. “Local Englishmen too come here quite often to eat Kerala dishes. Some of them visit after touring Kerala and demand the same spicy dishes that they had eaten there, says Ananthapuram’s owner Premachandran Rajan Panicker.
Panicker, a self-confessed cricket enthusiast, is upbeat about India’s chances in the ongoing World Cup. His opinion is echoed by Shine Christopher, a native of Puthupally in Kottayam and a regular visitor at Ananthapuram. Stibu Dharmajan, who hails from Varkala, went a step further and said, “we have already charted out plans to celebrate India’s title win!”
