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The Rediff Business Special/ Shobha Warrier

Idlis, dosas, pizzas, Madras is full of pizzazz!

Have you heard of J Jayalalitha's city having an Italian connection? It's got nothing to do with politics. It's the passion for pizzas.

How can the pizza replace our good, old dosa anduthappam? Can the "western" pizza be a substitute for our traditional, tasty, crispy dosa? These questions puzzle old-timers of Madras.

Take heart, the inflexible and the rigid. No dish, be it Chinese, Italian or western, will be able to wipe out our dosa or idli or uthappam from this planet. The pizza-pedlars themselves say so.

"Any day, I prefer my dal, roti. But we are not talking about pizza replacing our traditional food market. We are introducing something new," says Sumir Anand, director (marketing and franchising) of Pizza Corner.

"It would be foolish to expect the pizzas to replace dosas and idlis," says Prem Kumar, proprietor of Pizza Time. Agrees Nandakumar of Chef Express. "For another century, the dosa, idli market will not vanish."

Things like ordering pizzas for lunch or dinner, eating out at a pizza restaurant and enjoying a pizza buffet lunch at a trendy fastfood joint were unheard of till recently in Madras. But no longer.

The so-called "conservative" society kids now order a pizza over the telephone, much like their icons Archie and Jughead do. "When my parents are out, I order a pizza. There was a time when I used to read about this kind of thing in comic strips. Now it's happening here in Madras. It is great fun -- collecting a piping hot pizza from the delivery-man at your doorstep when it is raining outside," says 11-year-old Raghav happily.

Bored housewives prefer to have a small-size pizza before the afternoon siesta. Business executives take their friends and clients out to a pizza restaurant for high lunch.

Be it pre-noon, noon, afternoon, evening or night, it is certain that you cannot drive on any of the Madras roads without encountering a uniformed pizza delivery-man whizzing past you on his scooter. He has to deliver the stuff within 29 minutes. Else, the pizza is all yours, free. Have you ever heard of dosas or idlis being hardsold that way?

The pizza passion started in Madras when Pizza Corner set up shop 18 months ago. But the seeds were sown by Chef Express of Nandakumar and Reshma Patel three-and-a-half years ago.

Patel reminisces about the beginning. Madras residents were flabbergasted by the concept of pizza being delivered home in a jiffy. "We were a bit apprehensive but we decided to start in a small way with just 20 pizzas a day. We did not expect a miracle to happen. We wanted to do something different, that's all. The advantage that we had was, the satellite channels had reached the drawing rooms and people, at least the kids, were familiar with something called the pizza. In three or four months, orders rose to 250 to 300 a day."

Pizza Corner entered the market with a bang. They could afford to do so: the Thailand-based Global Investment Partners was funding the enterprise. "Our objective was to start from the most conservative city in India. So, we chose Madras. Then we opened our first outlet in the toughest place, Purasavakkom. We knew the rest of India would be easy if we succeed here. Yes, it was a tough market to crack but we have succeeded in making these conservative people come out and eat pizza," says Anand proudly.

Then, people would call the shop and enquire: ''Is it Pissa Corner?'' Pissa? Oh, you mean Pit-za. Yeah. Anand hit upon an idea that was to shape his pizza awareness campaign. He decided to teach people to pronounce pizza properly. So, the first hoarding screamed: Others give you pizza, we give you pitza.

The hoarding made it to cocktail circuit talk, encouraging Anand to go in for aggressive marketing. Soon, Pizza Corner became a household name. So much and so that a three-year-old can now recognise the shop's telephone number.

But the real challenge, Anand says, lies elsewhere. "Aggressive marketing is necessary to make people eat the first pizza. But if you want them to eat it again, you have to supply a good product."

From 150 pizzas to 4,000 pizzas a day, the shop has come a long way. In Bangalore, it is 6,000 pizzas a day. Their aim now is the 200,000 figure that Delhi takes pride in.

Mistake not that Anand is daydreaming. His vision is based on the ever-increasing popularity of fastfood joints in India. It is not just the food that people seem to like. The ambience at these trendy outlets also matters.

Take a look at a typical working day lunch hour at Pizza Time. Crowds mill around the counters. People of all age-groups seem eager to have a bite. The day's offer: the pizza buffet. Pizza for lunch? Whatever happened to thayir sadham? "Why not a pizza for lunch? I can manage without rice one day. It makes for variety. I care for some spice in life," an elderly gentleman said, before quickly biting into a huge slice of cheese capsicum pizza.

Prem Kumar, the 'pizza-person', says the rise of the software industry has spawned the passion. "The software guys have introduced new eating habits to Madrasis. They travel a lot and get a chance to savour a variety of food. They come back converted, and seek things they had experienced elsewhere. That's what spurs the demand. But Madras is not as good a market as Bombay or Bangalore."

Madras and mamis, as I found out while working on a feature on supermarkets, are inseparable. Do they perceive a threat in the pizzas? In the sense that the menfolk, long fed on home-made dosas and idlis, are increasingly gazing outside through the kitchen windows. Do they think the pizzas are videshi stuff unfit for swadeshis?

"Come on, don't think we mamis are conservative. We have also become very modern. When my son and grandson in the US freak out on the pizzas, why not I when they are available here? All said and eaten, pizzas are like dosa or uthappam," says Radha mami.

Prem Kumar reveals a 'secret'. There is some snob value attached to the pizzas. ''And mamis want snob value? Believe me, 70 per cent of our noon-time home delivery orders are to housewives!"

The pizza-shop people agree that it was easier to attract the kids and the yuppies, but wooing the 40-plus crowd and the family was a bit difficult and very challenging. Anand recalls his excitement when he saw a child with his father and grandfather in one of his restaurants. "Three generations under one roof. That was our target and we achieved it. When Saurav Ganguly visited our Adyar restaurant, there was a stampede. The kids had a wonderful time with him."

With multinationals like Dominos and Pizza Hut also entering the race, has the pizza market reached a saturation point? "Yes, it is stagnant," admits Nandakumar. "This is not a big market to accommodate several players."

Kumar and Anand do not agree. When last heard, Pizza Corner has kept the 40,000-pizzas-a-day as its target in Madras.

Photographs: Sreeram Selvaraj

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