He was to find out another that day. Steaming cauldrons of rice and sambar were sending up wispy, fragrant curls in the firewood-scented kitchen. And, then, young Natarajan was asked to put the ladies finger in the kadai, to make poriyal. He lifted with difficulty the eight kilograms of chopped vegetables, dropped them into a vessel and added some water for good measure. Within minutes, the panicking lad prostrated in front of his grandfather. “Ennadapayale?” he asked. And, then, smiling, taught him to convert the gooey mass into a delectable kootu.

Nearly eight decades later, the boy, whose name has since been prefixed with ArusuvaiArasu, goes down nostalgia lane. His eyes glint with the memory of the day he learnt his greatest lesson — there must be no mistakes in cooking, but when you commit one, think out of the box to set it right.

It was because of this fierce desire to learn that a boy from an impoverished family of cooks made a mark for himself. “I started off when I was seven or eight years, working at the Sankara Mutt in Kumbakonam, helping my grandfather. I would sweep, clean, wash… My constant refrain used to be, ‘Mama, naanpanraen’,” smiles Natarajan.

He worked as a server at Modern Hotel, Trichy, and handled 32 seats at a go. “I would recite all the items by rote… idli, dosai, poori, pongal…” He later joined AmbiIyer hotel and Adikudi hotel. He also worked for wedding caterers, because it brought in more money, and also taught him how to scale up a recipe and handle large crowds.

He moved to Madras in 1952 and worked in MIT hostel, Chromepet, before JayaramIyer brought him to Geetha Café, Pondy Bazaar. There, he whipped up tiffin, and his favourite, saapad. “I loved cooking rasam, white pumpkin sambar… creating a meal is joyous, day in and day out.”

In 1956, M.N. SambamoorthyIyer offered Natarajan his first opportunity in wedding catering at 121, VaradamuthiyappanTheruChatram. “There’s been no looking back since. We’ve done close to 75,000 weddings as a family, and the children are taking the legacy forward,” he says.

People referred us by ‘taste of mouth’, says Natarajan.

As for Natarajan, his favourites are rasam, avaraikkaiporiyal, white pumpkin sambar and ashokahalwa. Even today, at 90, Natarajan goes to the office regularly. Occasionally, he visits wedding halls too.