Sunday the 27th of May came two days after I had read an article on how food acts as a great leveler between the high – the low, the mighty – the meek, the healthy – the sick, the rude – the polite….. Gokul and I finish our weekly shuttle practice and on our way back, are met with ravaging hunger, hunger enough to kill us a dozen times on the spot. So we start discussing various options which starts with Nandhini, Jayanagar which is ruled out instantly because on weekends you might as well work as a part time employee / door keeper from 12:30 – 15:00 pm because till 15:00 you won’t get a seat and will have to stand near the door keeper giving him company saluting the various patrons entering and exiting and to add to the misery you would be distraught with the confusion of identifying the various aromas of chicken curry, fish fry etc rafting through the air and your mind will be busy calculating the matrix of how many people went in, average time of eating etc. Never mind let me move on from this frightful bashing of having to wait in life. So then we discuss a few more options, and because our DNA constitutions are different, for whichever place I agree, he disagrees and vice versa. Finally our consensus was a place called ‘Surya mess’ which is a place in JP Nagar serving authentic Kerala food. They serve some excellent home cooked food, with amazing curries and can cause diseases with symptoms like dreaming about their food, cravings to go crawling back to their place within a single day for more than three times a day. Also mind you, you can have dinner there for ten times at the same cost that you might have to shell out for a single meal in an average restaurant. So with this idea we drive on, until we smell the same aromas of Kerala wafting around few km away, some where around South End circle. And as we wonder if we have been day dreaming or caught in a sensory mirage about food, bingo right there we see a fishy place with several auto’s and two wheelers standing near a Fish outlet, where they sell a wide variety of fish based dishes. I have seen this place several times in the night when there are several people in cars and from the upper strata of life, does it mean they are there for some good food under the cover of darkness – does it mean they don’t want to be seen in such a small place in the morning light where their actions would come to light to others? Anyways we see people on the pavement enjoying a fishy! meal & now we are in a dilemma as to whether we eat here, else where or take a pack back home. Finally the aroma, the freshness and the native cooking style win us over and food being a great leveler makes us pick up a set of meals, a fish and a prawn dish and we sat right next to the auto wallahs and other co diners and we settled comfortably on the road’s pavement(yes I said pavement) and admired the taste of the food but at the same time was looking with the corner of my eye at the passing cars and vehicles nervously hoping not to catch a glimpse of any person known to me, but gradually the food taste was so great that I was ready to advocate and advertise this place to many a friends and pals. The good food had bought about a nice pleasant mood in me that I ended up buying a meal for a poor kid about 5-6 years who was pointing to the fish meal and asking me to buy him a plate of that nirvana.
So food acted as a great leveler making me sit somewhere where I won’t ideally sit and dine. Food as always has proved to be the connecting factor between many a people.
Surya Mess MAP
No comments:
Post a Comment