India, April 18 -- Is there no escaping the golgappa?

I recently went to a South Indian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. And there, among the starters, was a golgappa filled with Kerala flavours of prawn, tamarind and rasam.

Malayalis are rediscovering the golgappa, as are many other South Indians, though it was just three years ago that a Tamil Nadu minister contemptuously dismissed Hindi speakers as "pani puri sellers". (The fellow should get out more. Hindi speakers call the dish golgappas or, in UP, batashas. Pani puri is a Mumbai name.)

In Kochi two months ago, I had a completely novel version of the golgappa made by Suresh Pillai, Kerala's most famous chef. Pillai put buttermilk in his golgappas. It should not have worked but strangel...