>> south, particularly in a Brahmin household, you will have one sambhar, one rasam, three vegetable currys

> This is not even remotely typical.

Digress!

What is typical?

It is always good to learn about people's lifestyles....

South India consists of fives states and one Union Territory, all with different languages, culture and culinary styles. A meal in a Brahmin household in Hyderabad will be very different to one in Chennai with probably only rice being the common feature. Curry is too generic to be a useful descriptor.

It's hard to make broad generalizations. But having been to all six divisions and having lived in three of them, I feel very confident in saying that a household that cooks three different curries, sambar and rasam for a single meal is very atypical. What GP described sounds closer to a restaurant set course meal and not something a household would cook on a day to day basis.

I helped prepare lunch in a Punjabi household this afternoon, and on the stove there was rice, two subjis, chai and a roti tawa all at the same time. I would consider this a typical (if not modest) lunch routine amongst the many Punjabi households in which I have had lunch.

> and on the stove there was rice, two subjis, chai and a roti tawa all at the same time.

So, they had 5 burners?

Anyways, my comment was more about the number of dishes. Two curries as in your example is fairly typical. Three curries, a sambar and a rasam like the GP said is definitely not. Chai at lunchtime does sound strange to me but then again, I'm not really familiar with Punjabi culinary preferences.