Every Iyengar* bakery has its regulars. Among these regulars are a minimum of three stray dogs that make the area just outside the bakery their permanent home, and a cow. They have a well established, if obscure credit system with the bakers, good-naturedly offering to never pay for all the various bakery items that are thrown over the counter to them.
The dogs usually make friends with the other regulars and urge them, good-naturedly, to part with a little of their purchases. They always find one old lady or man who willingly do so.The cow lumbers up at some point in the day, makes a place for himself beside everyone else outside the counter that displays all the freshly baked white butter biscuits, golden hunched scones, creamy cherry-topped cakes, bulging puffs and whole loaves of soft bread and drools copiously and waits patiently, while looking hopefully at the goings-on in case the goings-on might decide to throw him a loaf of bread.
No one grudges the dogs and cow. They understand. It is impossible, with those wonderful smells of whisked butter and fresh bread, which promise to melt in your mouth, to walk resolutely past an Iyengar bakery.
*Iyengar: a notably south-Indian folk, some of whom decided one day to open a string of bakeries and make some drool-worthy egg-puffs.
haha. egg-puffs, veg-puffs, aloo buns, that open sandwich thingy, 'honey' cakes, the list is endless.iyengar bakeries have always been a super-yummy part of growing up in bangalore :o)
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