Dining in Hell

I guess this rant will be understood by people like me. By me I mean unmarried folks which would be the majority of people here.

I was at this popular breakfast haunt of Bangaloreans the other day. This place is like a holy place of us old Bangaloreans and we make a pilgrimage least once in two months to eat here. Most of us have had our first solid food here. I did, when I grabbed some Khara Bath(Upma in Hindi and Salt Mango Tree in Malayalam) from my dads plate and stuffed my mouth in front of my horrified mum. Then I insisted on finishing it and never looked at baby food again. Baby food tasted terrible after tasting Khara Bath from M.T.R. In fact everything tastes terrible after you have eaten from M.T.R.

I hated Baby food so much that my parents used it as blackmail to get me to eat food.

“Finish your rice Anju or you go back to baby food.” I was a very chubby as a kid.

So here we were three freinds on our monthly pilgrimage to M.T.R sitting at this table next to a large joint family. The joint family consisted of a grandpa, grandma, their siblings and the grandpa, grandma and their sibling’s older kids and the older kid’s younger kids most of whom were newly married with babies and toddlers. The entire Khandaan sat on half a dozen tables. The women wore ghoonghat (covered their head with saree pallu) and were perpetually busy keeping it in place. The men talked loudly amongst themselves and kids were like brats raised by a she wolf a la Jungle King for they crawled all over the table and under and generally behaved like a pack of baby animals escaped from a hospital for mentally retarded baby animals. Their parents had also ensured that they had all taken their Adrenalin tablets before coming to the restaurant. For good measure I guess they gave them twice the dose this day.

The food came and we watched with interest as the kids attacked the food like a horde of starving locusts. In the melee that followed most of us were treated to an aromatic bath of Sambhar, Chutney, Kesari Bath and Potato Curry and as an after shower perfume we were sprayed with hot Coffee and Tea. M.T.R. is one of the few places that serves you piping hot tea and coffee and this day it was scalding hot. Next time I take Burnol with me when I go there.

*Splat* and a blob of thick coconut chutney came and hit me like a slap. My white top looked like it had a splash of green color embroidered on. My friends started giggling. *Splash* a spatter of Sambhar sprayed on my other friends starched Organdy designer salwar. She looked like she was going to have a brain hemorrhage. I started cackling at the expression on her face and just then a half eaten vada came and fell on our table. The third girl at the table, a prim and proper missy had had enough. She took it and threw it back at the offending table. The occupants of that table stopped chewing, fighting, thwacking, throwing food and generally behaving like a bunch of cave people at an all you can kill and eat buffet and looked at us with disapproval. Then they promptly returned to the culinary orgy. I noticed that the kids had more food on their persons than in their bellies. Now that requires some serious talent I tell you! Hats off!

After the eating spree was over the kids turned their attention to the cutlery and crockery. Suddenly flying saucers and spoon appeared from nowhere and tables started bobbing up and down as determined kids tried to topple them from underneath. All this while the adults talked and chewed and talked some more.

We paid our bill and got up to leave. That’s when we noticed that the other neighbors of the Adams family had pulled their table as far away as they could from this family. Bummer. Wish we had done the same. :(