A well-known urban cult called CTR

A well-known urban cult called CRT
Golden brown dosa with dollops of butter is indeed a sinful ritual
Deepa Bhasthi | TNN


What is it about cults that makes its followers such ardent advocates of its rituals? Maybe it is the episodes of life that are entangled with the cult, the people and the ensuing stories. Maybe that is what makes CTR the cult it is, for Malleswaram’s elderly settlers, for the grandchildren and their friends, for the odd foreigner who stumbles in, for every new generation that discovers Central Tiffin Room and learns to swear by it.
In the bustle of the city that has grown around it, it is easy to miss this renamed Sri Sagar hotel that arguably makes the best dosas in town. But people always find their way to its doorsteps, led by the aroma of a thick blob of white butter melting sinfully on a perfectly rolled golden brown, just-the-rightcolour dosa. Everything at CTR has a tendency to melt in your mouth; little wonder then that there are thousands of its followers.
CTR is not some place where you can watch the world go by as you down a delectable bit of the very famous benne masala dosa (BMD, you could call it). The rather small room is too packed, the conversations, each vying to be heard over the one at the adjoining table. The green and red walls, pale white metal benches make the room smaller. An assortment of goddesses and a grandpa clock ticks away, silenced by the conversations, look on at the hundreds who file in every day.
New generations discover the dosas and the rava idlis and the kesari bath. There are the older ones, the working class, the frail old men on a trip to reminisce their youth in a bite, relishing memories and friends and life gone by. They are the quieter lot; the newer ones are busy building their memories for another day as they down one golden delicacy after the other.
CTR offers set dosa, chow chow bath, maddur vada, poori-saagu, plain dosa and the like. Nothing is priced above Rs 20. The BMD seems to rule the tables, the greasy-as-sin butter washed down later with piping hot filter coffee, frothy, sweet and very milky.
CTR is a rite, part of several lives for several years. Things are simple here, no fancy decor, just the basics. No fancy tissues, just the water and bits of yesterday’s newspaper that the waiter pulls out of his pocket if you ask. Just steel plates with strips of banana leaf for the tradition and the aroma. Varied conversations mingle and create the perfect din. Nobody minds any, the food makes up for it all. In the cult that CTR is, it boils down to the basics. Just a lot of butter, the extraordinary dosas, the plain pleasure of relishing the two together. In the midst of all things basic.
CTR
154, ground floor, Margosa Road, 7th Cross, Malleswaram
Phone: 2331 7531
Prices: All below Rs 20