Prologue On the plane from Abu Dhabi to Chennai I was sitting near an Indian woman who was traveling with her daughter of only a few months. She was from Delhi, but for the past few years they have been living in the Netherlands. When I told her that I am going to live in South India for the next 6 months she said: I don’t want to discourage you, but I think you will have a hard time. Because of food. Mainly. The tender coconut lovers Even without this comment, I was concerned about the food (even though I went to a few Indian restaurants before in my life). Everybody was warning me that it will be way tooooo spicy for me. And that I’ll have to be careful what I eat. Because food is not as hygienic as the one I am used to. But still, I wasn’t feeling discouraged. When I was 14 I became a vegetarian in a town where being one had no culture. I got a lot of criticism and warnings when I’ve changed my diet. Like “you will get sick”, “you can’t survive without meat”, “w