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Pizza at every 'corner' and 'hut'

Sunday morning, 1994: "Let's go out and have breakfast. We'll have idli-vada sambar".

Sunday morning, 2004: "Let's go out and have breakfast. We'll have pizza."

Welcome to the Pizzaic world. Everbody's eating pizza, everybody's calling and ordering pizza to their homes. What is it about pizza that attracts the Chennai yo-gen?

"It's good to eat and healthy too. You can have one pizza for lunch and your stomach doesn't disturb you till dinner. And, the pizza shops in Chennai have very good ambience. They're rockin' with good music, and people coming here are all part of my group - the Yo generation!," says yo-man Santosh.

What makes the pizza special is that it caters to a huge variety of food-eaters. A non-veggie can opt for a chicken curry pizza. A veggie (three cheers to him, he's vegetarian! Go veg!) can opt for a magherita or the popular veggie delight. And there are many more varieties for both class of eaters. That huge variety and the fact that its audience is a widespread one is what makes pizza joints come up at every 'corner' and in 'huts'.

What do the pizza guys think?

"India's a great marketing area for pizzas. Everybody, especially the youth, have gone bonkers over it. It's quick money for us, and we ensure that every customer is welcomed with a smile," says Shiva, smiling at every customer at Pizza Corner.

This is very evident in today's scenario. Almost all the pizza joints are filled with people at all times. And, the calls to the dial-a-pizza numbers are increasing by the day. This has led to even local companies such as 'Amul' to come up with small 20 bucks pizzas and has led to an interesting battle between local and international pizzaics.

Only in America does a Pizza peach your home faster than an ambulance was a sarcastic comment made some years ago. Chennai/India could well become like America in this context sooner or later.

Here is some pizza trivia:

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The biggest pizza ever was made in South Africa in December 1990 at the Norwood Hypermarket, and measured a whopping 123 ft in diameter.

In the 1950s, famous singer Dean Martin sang -'When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that amore'. This set America singing as well as eating pizzas.

Srinivasa Ramanujam
Published on 24^th March, 2004

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