Thursday, June 15, 2006

Jokes at the table

My mum had just gotten back from work and she said that she was too tired to cook. I’m sure she had known all along where she had wanted to go out to eat but when my dad asked her what she wanted to do, she paused a bit and thought about it and finally came up with what we knew she was going to suggest right from the beginning. She wanted to go to the Indian restaurant. Big surprise! Anyway, I was sick of going to the Indian restaurant by this time because that’s where we had been going every single time we went out and it seems that stomach pains were starting to become routine. The food wasn’t good there either. Hoping not to have to go through it again, I pleaded with my dad logically stating that we should try a different cuisine because that’s what eating out was all about anyway. It seems that I was mistaken. So after refusing to go and using various other tactics to change my parents’ mind, I found myself in the car, driving them to the dratted Indian restaurant.

We reached after a ten minute drive and then were seated. I knew what I was going to order even before I looked at the menu as usual, while my parents took a while to decide. So after we had placed our order, my dad was mentioning how everyone was uniform right from the moustache down to the shoes. It seems that Indian waiters find it necessary to sport a moustache for who knows what reason, because they all sure had it. Must be some sort of unwritten agreement that everyone look so identical so as to be able to confuse the customers. Then after a while we saw this man who for starters did not have a moustache and was not wearing a tie! On top of that, he wasn’t wearing a white shirt and black pants. He was instead sporting a yellow shirt, brown pants and a rugged visage. Next he placed the item that we had ordered on the table next to ours much to the surprise of the customers seated at that table. When the confusion had been sorted out, my dad mused upon whether he was the owner’s wife’s brother or owner’s sisters husband to be able to disregard the unwritten codes! This statement cracked me up and I was trying to suppress my shrieks of laughter without success. Then in the midst of all this, I choked on my food and spit everything out right onto the table because I was laughing so much. But the choking incident quickly put the laughter to a stop. And then after that I made the wise decision not to put anything more into my mouth. So I guess the moral of the story is that you should make sure you go to a restaurant where everyone is wearing the same thing, so that it does not give chance to make such hilarious jokes.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Tribute to Shantaram

After being captured by this compilation of such beautiful words, my faithful words elude me now at the completion of this magnificent book Shantaram. I have finished with Shantaram. I think I am finished with Shantaram. The special phrases I marked down are running around in my head, each vying for the spotlight in the abyss which is my mind. Yet no quote can take precedence over the other. For all are equal in measurement of wisdom and beauty. Read this book if you have the chance to and listen to what these words speak of. You will find yourself enthralled and absorbed by the magnificence that is so surely exudes.