ROTI aur C++

The Place : Catering counter, Terrace Cafeteria of an IT Firm, Bangalore

The Time : Lunch Hour

The Characters : Four-Foul-Food-Frustrated-Friends

  Acts I, II and III             

                                   

Ratish (Looking at the counter and lined up food items) : “Yaar hamaare yahan ye khaana Ghoddon ko khilaya jaata hai..” (At our place this food is served to horses)

Peeyush :  “ Kya baat kar raha hai, hamaare yahan to Ghaddon ko khilaya jaata hai” (What are you saying? we throw it to donkeys)

Jai : “Yaar yeh khaana dekh ke to lagta hai shaadi kar hii lun” (This food is making me contemplate marriage)

Peeyush : “Beta, these are the times where there is no surety of great food even after  you get married. Gone are those days bhai,  when husband would come home, tired, and by the time he changes and freshens up, wife would prepare hot Ginger-Cardamom tea, then both of them would sip it, chatting about the day which would make his tiredness vanish like hair from Sehwag’s head! Then they go for a walk in a nearby park and while coming back buy some vegetables and fruits. Back home, they put on their favorite music, talk about domestic affairs, parents and about those in the family who are next in line to get married. (Don’t know why but all married couples want everybody around them to get married as soon as possible) ya and then wife prepares delicious home cooked food…well… with help from him, of course”

Ratish: Haan yaar Jai, take my case. My wife and I run to catch the office bus at 7.45 am after having a breakfast which reminds me of Military Hospital (Dry, hard bread with jam and boiled eggs). We talk twice on phone during our 9 hours in office. Once at 11 am break and then when in bus on our way back home.

Jai: Not during lunch??

Ratish: I knew you would ask that. No dude, not at lunch. We are surrounded by our colleagues and project mates and it would feel awkward.. also, we need to socialize a bit yaar!! Evenings, either she gets home first and then waits for me or vice versa.
Now, usually around 7.45 pm when am watching IPL and she is on the phone talking to her parents, and brother, and neighbor and neighbour’s dog, comes our annadataa, our Cook.

Peeyush: Cook? Oriya hai?

Ratish: Haan yaar. How did you know?

Peeyush : Cycle pe aata hai??

Ratish : Yes man!!… saaley.. Are you stalking me?

Peeyush : No man! Don’t you know that Oriya and Bihari cooks have signed a contract with BMC that only they would have the rights to cook for all the IT engineers (especially single men and women) in Bangalore.. .And as lord Ganesh’s official vehicle was Mouse, their's is a Bicycle.

Ratish: Thik hai thik hai.. haan after that our cook prepares his favorite dishes. Kindly note ‘HIS’. Even though we don’t know what he is preparing and how the end product would be and what did he prepare yesterday… both of us would keep shooting dialogues (from our respective locations and positions) : “arry Deb! kal rotiyaan kachchi reh gayi thi yaar”, “dekho tail kamm daala karo bhaiyaa”.. just to keep him on his toes.9.00 PM. Dinner ready. And with that, its Her turn to have TV Remote. So We have dinner together, watching Yeh Rishta kya kehlaata hai and Bade Achche Lagte Hain… now deciding which was worst, the Dinner or the serials, is like deciding between getting murdered or committing suicide.  After dinner its time for a couple of reality shows and by 11.00 PM… Crash!!

Jai  : When I was a kid, everybody elder to me used to tell me that ‘A man should eat to live and not live to eat’.. Am doing exactly that… I eat only that much which would keep me alive. Otherwise I don’t feel like eating anything… I still remember those days when we, as kids, would watch TV sitting on the mat in our drawing and Mom would prepare delicious Sabzi.. that very sound of chopped onions and tomatoes falling into the hot cooking oil in kadaai.. it was my favourite sound. And then the aroma of tadka with all those masalas, jeera, dhaniya, heeng… that was my favorite essence….hmmmm.

Ratish: Yeah Man!! .. Am not sure whether our kids’ generation will have that privilege. Am seeing this trend, more and more girls are shying away from cooking.

Peeyush  : True.. And more and more guys are cooking nowadays.

Jai  : Ya… they don’t have any option. May be they miss their mother’s food so much that they take things.. or rather utensils in their own hands.I know a few guys who didn’t know the ‘C’ of cooking till an year ago and now they are experts in preparing staple diet of single IT guys.. that is, Dal and Chaawal!

Peeyush  : I will tell you something, three IT girls stay near my place. And you know…

Jai and Ratish : Saaley !! you didn’t tell us!!

Peeyush  : Ok ok don’t get hyper.. listen first. So I see these girls, on weekends at around 10.00, they go to a nearby bakery in their pajamas and get a ‘Full Tea’ in plastic cups, come back home, have it, go through the Morning routine then again go to a restaurant (around 200 mts away), have idllis with previous day’s chutney (which was stored in a common freezer and so smelling of onions, mangoes and curry leaves at the same time!!)Come back again to the same restaurant in afternoon to have North Indian Meals cooked in pure South Indian Style! (curd rice included). Back to home. sleep. In the evening again ‘full tea’ in pajamas. Around 7.30  its time for pani puri and other such stuff (sometimes I think there wouldn’t be any ‘purpose of existence’ for these girls if there were no Mobiles and No Pani puri in this world). At 9.00 back to same restaurant where they had lunch, stand in a queue for 15 min to get the coupon, have Veg Biryani with Gobi Manchurian and while going home take a DVD on rent. (once I was there in the DVD shop and was asking for ‘BANARAS’, just then entered two of these girls and asked for ‘BI2’.. after a week I came to know that it stands for Basic Instinct – Part 2)

Jai: Abe woh to theek hai.. but why are you telling us their time table… unka itna khayaal to unki maa bhi nahin rakhti hogi

Peeyush  : No.. did you notice one thing here. Three girls. Weekend. Lots of time…. But no cooking at home. They are ready to eat the ‘ghadon ka khana’ but wont cook. Why? Is it because they are pure lazy, tired…. Or is it because ‘I cook at home’ sounds so village-ish, so Behen-ji types, so Ghareloo (which is considered as a derogatory term, nowadays).

Ratish: arrey yaar, but why are you taking so much tension. It’s their wish, their life.

Peeyush  : No I don’t have to do anything with them.. but I feel strongly about the cooking part in general. Be it guys or girls. Arrey yaar Me and My roommate, we cook even on weekdays.. and I feel it’s a nice stress-buster. Come home, put on some nice music, talk to your roommates, cook together, experiment, try something new every time and then relish it… the best part is that you can never get bored with home cooked food and most importantly its healthy too!! The whole process so beautiful … subconsciously, it teaches you so many things… and as Big B says in a movie ‘cooking is the only art where you have to use four senses to appreciate it’

Ratish : I absolutely agree with you on health part… yeh log pehle to bahar ka ulta seedha khaate hai. every evening I see so many of them pouncing on those gol-gappaas as soon as they get down from their company buses… aur phir..they become like those very gol-gappaas and develop ‘All Round’ (round from all angles) personalities and then all those conversations during lunch hour about  how they want to hit a Gym, join Yoga classes, Play Badminton and are forced to have fruit salad as lunch when everybody else is gorging on Puris and channa masala!

Jai :  Having good, tasty, hygienic and healthy food is one of the best way to celebrate this great gift of GOD to us, The Life. But by ignoring it and considering it as insignificant in order to earn more, we are missing the true enjoyment of being alive in a healthy body.

Ratish : I agree.

Peeyush : Absolutely!

ME (yes! yours truly) : Guys! Am not sure of this but if we don’t move ahead now… these guys in this long queue behind us would definitely not allow us to live anymore. So throw some of this colorful rice in your plates and move. Also……

Ratish, Peeyush and Jai : yes yes we know.

ME : What?

Ratish, Peeyush and Jai (Moving their heads 180 degree) : We really need to look very hard for a place to sit!!!