Mahabali and the pappadam — a speculative flashback

This stream-of-consciousness yarn, spun on an impulse, was triggered by a recent news item and video doing the rounds on social media about a fight over pappadams at a feast in Alappuzha, Kerala, with the festive Onam season round the corner. So, as the story goes, there once was this king, Maveli or Mahabali, whose rule was so munificent and egalitarian, taking care of everything every one of his subjects required or desired, that they had no worries or troubles or unfulfilled needs or aspirations, and gave no thought to after-life and didn’t bother to pray or worship their gods. In the blink of one eye, and with a mischievous twinkle in the other, Vamana grew to as much height as it takes to measure the entire earth in one step, all of the sky in the next, and then, one foot raised, looked at Mahabali, seemingly perplexed and irritated, as if to ask where the hell he was expected to place the third step to complete the full measure promised to him. Anyway, to proceed with the story, Mahabali, to keep his word to Vamana, granting him the three foot measure of land, goes down on his knees muttering, “where the hell is right,” under his breath, and proffers his head to the figure looming large before him saying, “OK, get on with it, place your third step right here.” Vishnu then proceeds to place his foot on Mahabali’s head and push him into the bowel of the earth, called ‘pataala’ in Sanskrit and ‘hell’ in English, which was inhabited by demons. Driven partly by this call of good governance that comes naturally to a good king and partly by the there-and-then guilt, Mahabali was seized with, apart from the slight embarrassment in being caught red handed into his seventh-plus-half pappadam, he then and there declared that henceforth the quota of pappadams per plantain leaf – based on a new and more evolved gastronomical principle – would be seven and a half.