Enjoyment of a meal is directly proportional to where you are seated at the dining table. That's why I was relieved when I found myself at one end of the table during lunch at a friend’s place. I was hungry and not being seated at the side meant I would actually be able to concentrate on my plate and eat something.
Usually I find myself at the side centre, playing the role of the eternal passer. A polite request from the right, ‘Could you pass the rice, please? Thanks,’ prompts you to hastily put down the glass of water you were beginning to sip and reach for the dish. But just as you get your fingers around it, a rude voice from the left barks, ‘The chicken, the fried chicken, be quick! Come on, stretch for it, I'm starving.’
While playing this hectic game of passing the dishes, you somehow manage to sneak a serving of noodles on your plate, achieved with a quick flick of the fork as the dish flew over your plate in its lightning travel to the other end. The fork is halfway to your eager mouth, strands of noodles dangling down like the vines in a Tarzan movie, when simultaneous requests from the far left and the far right for the inaccessible plate of vegetables at one end of the table and for the savoury fish fry at the other cause you to drop the fork with a clatter on your plate.
Made nervous by the looks of disapproval from the others, you stretch your left arm for the platter on your right and your right arm to get the dish on your left, getting your arms hopelessly knotted in the process. By the time you sort yourself out, the impatient diners have sought the assistance of others nearby. The sight of all that food passing up and down, sometimes under your nose, sometimes over your head, finally kills your appetite. The cold noodles turn to ashes in your mouth and you turn away with a sigh from the almost empty dishes that have finally come to a standstill and lined themselves like errant children before you.
So finding myself at the head (or was it the tail?) of the table renewed my appetite. The hostess brought a plate of big buns and served them to everybody. ‘Great beginning,’ I thought. ‘Now surely the fish molee will follow.’ Indeed it did, only it never reached me. I learnt the sad truth that not everyone is a born passer. Some fail to pass and I noticed to my chagrin that the dishes stopped moving when the hostess moved off to the kitchen.
I eyed the fish longingly. The person at the head of the table - yes, I was at the tail all right - ladled a good portion as did the ones seated to his left and right. The ones sitting to my left and right stretched their hands and managed to scoop their shares. Soon all that could be heard was satisfied chomping punctuated by the occasional compliment to the hostess and the gentle clinking sound of my playing with the bun. I pushed the bun to the rim of the plate with my spoon, and balancing it there slowly prodded it outward, tempting it to go overboard. Just as it began to topple over, I rescued it with a fork and guided it all over my plate on a sightseeing tour.
The rice, the chapattis, the chicken and the vegetables arrived in quick succession and remained cluttered at the other end. My companions repeated their previous performance while distance made my mouth water even more. My bun continued to traverse crazily about the plate.
Finally the maid brought a bowl of salad and finding empty space only at my end of the table, placed it before me. Have you ever had bun with onions and cucumber? Take it from me, it’s absolutely divine; a heavenly combination of manna and ambrosia. I broke the bun into small bits, took my time to mix them with the salad and masticated slowly, contentedly; a cow could have picked up a thing or two from me.
As we left, everyone raved about the food. I decided to chip in with a compliment about the salad. ‘Lovely salad,’ I said. ‘Salad?’ Five pairs of accusing eyes turned to me. ‘Was there salad? We never even saw it,’ a friend complained. ‘Why didn't you pass it to us?’
[khyrubutter@yahoo.com]
(A fortnightly column by city-based writer, academic and author of the Butterfingers series)
