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The last 15 odd posts on 'Table Manners & Mannerisms' from 8 to 22 described in short my reverie on Laxman's dining table 'musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was...'
As I said earlier, in 1967, when I joined the august and somber Guest House which was in the throes of getting converted into our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, I was about the senior-most gatecrasher. And I had to be a victim of the Western Style cooking and serving and eating and table-mannering, saying, "Could you please pass on...?" and "With your permission please..." and uttering inanities like "Beg your pardon" and "Excuse me" and "May I..?"
And then the floodgates opened.
More and more vivacious junior faculty and senior 'abhadraloks' (like me) followed my footsteps. American Guest Professors stopped visiting IIT KGP, the four young visiting Russian guys were more uncivilized and loud and rumbustious and poorer than me, our dining hall ceased to be sepulchral, Laxman and other bearers shed their starched liveries and started appearing in their lungis, the Western Style cooks entered our sacred dining hall in their soiled and oiled gamchas (loin clothes) smoking their beedis, colloquial Hindi and Bengali became the dominant lingoes displacing the solemn English, a skeleton menu was forced on the boarders cutting the mess bill by half to around a manageable Rs 120, Rajan, the Manager, learned to smile broadly and laugh heartily and shout at his bearers instead of simpering, contract bridge was played in the lawn and Scrabble in the dining hall, a separate tiny and starched dining room was built for the few Phoren Visitors who, Rajan thought, didn't like to mix with us hoi polloi (but they did), and the mess became a home away from home to all of us rowdies.
Of course we could never have those "Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff" on our menu but the hated corn flakes and porridge vanished from the dining tables.
And I started reclining on my dining chair stretching and placing my legs on the vacant chair opposite, smoking my perennial Wills Flakes using coffee cups as ash trays.
This reminds me of the Notice that was boldly displayed in our Ajanta Hotel in Vizagh:
"If you use our coffee cups as your ash trays, we will serve you your coffee in our ash trays!"
Quarrels and arguments freely erupted between boarders, for, it was the season of change (poribartan) in Bengal...the Left Front was in the offing and so were the Naxalites.
Talking of Naxalites, when I mentioned this word to my younger sisters at Gudur on my summer vacation, they asked me innocently:
"Are they something like our tube lights?"
Anyway the high point of our polite arguments was when the shy and silent American-returned Bengali gent, Dr BKR, retorted lustily, for a change:
"When the rich marwaris are grabbing the lands of our poor, what is wrong if a few of our poor Bengalis burn a couple of buses out of their hunger?"
And, of course, coarse jokes were flying to quell the pangs of our spiritual hunger when the menu turned out to be more insipid than usual.
I still recall the occasion when our otherwise gentle and shy Dr Chitnis, just back from America, joined our stale joke-telling session of the usual Baldev Singh Sardar jokes like the Napoleon joke and the Tongawalla joke, by narrating casually and solemnly his American Sardarjee joke:
In a California auditorium lots of ladies and gents assembled for a silent mimicry session. One by one the contenders were appearing on the stage and vying with each other. Each was supposed to silently act out with his hands and feet the title of a Hollywood hit and ask the audience to guess the movie's title.
Titles like 'Ten Commandments' and 'Bridge on the River Kwai' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire' were up for grabs and the first to guess got their toffees thrown at them.
Then came the turn of our Sardarjee. He asked a table fan to be brought and placed on a stool. When it was done and the fan was switched on, he stood in front of it with his back facing the fan's wind and slowly unbuttoned his pants a wee bit and bent his arse towards the fan. And asked:
"Guess what is the title of the film I showed you just now"
Everyone fell silent, perplexed.
And the auditorium was drowned in pin-drop silence.
And our Sardarjee asked:
"Can't you guess this simple thing? Amazing!"
And the audience shouted:
"No! We give up!"
And our Surd came out with his answer:
"Gond pe Wind!"
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...I pushed it aside and called Laxman to come outside the gorgeous dining hall. And he came...birds of similar stock:
"Laxman, my dear fellow! Don't you serve Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff?"
"No sir...this is a Western Style Guest House"
(Aside) "To hell with you and your Western Style...are we not in Mother India?"
It took but two years to civilize the place and make Laxman shed his starched livery and broken English...
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2014/04/table-manners-mannerisms-6.html
"Laxman, my dear fellow! Don't you serve Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff?"
"No sir...this is a Western Style Guest House"
(Aside) "To hell with you and your Western Style...are we not in Mother India?"
It took but two years to civilize the place and make Laxman shed his starched livery and broken English...
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2014/04/table-manners-mannerisms-6.html
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...By
then Laxman had brought his lippy juglet of milk and a cup and saucer
for my coffee. And I tried pouring out the black decoction from its pot
and found it colder than ten Polar Bears's arses. And I finally declared
to Laxman:
"Laxman! Be my friend and give me just one cup of steaming coffee made by your hands and I ask nothing more for my breakfast"
And while he vanished happily into the kitchen I started musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was even though folks took me for a goat.
"Laxman! Be my friend and give me just one cup of steaming coffee made by your hands and I ask nothing more for my breakfast"
And while he vanished happily into the kitchen I started musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was even though folks took me for a goat.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The last 15 odd posts on 'Table Manners & Mannerisms' from 8 to 22 described in short my reverie on Laxman's dining table 'musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was...'
As I said earlier, in 1967, when I joined the august and somber Guest House which was in the throes of getting converted into our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, I was about the senior-most gatecrasher. And I had to be a victim of the Western Style cooking and serving and eating and table-mannering, saying, "Could you please pass on...?" and "With your permission please..." and uttering inanities like "Beg your pardon" and "Excuse me" and "May I..?"
And then the floodgates opened.
More and more vivacious junior faculty and senior 'abhadraloks' (like me) followed my footsteps. American Guest Professors stopped visiting IIT KGP, the four young visiting Russian guys were more uncivilized and loud and rumbustious and poorer than me, our dining hall ceased to be sepulchral, Laxman and other bearers shed their starched liveries and started appearing in their lungis, the Western Style cooks entered our sacred dining hall in their soiled and oiled gamchas (loin clothes) smoking their beedis, colloquial Hindi and Bengali became the dominant lingoes displacing the solemn English, a skeleton menu was forced on the boarders cutting the mess bill by half to around a manageable Rs 120, Rajan, the Manager, learned to smile broadly and laugh heartily and shout at his bearers instead of simpering, contract bridge was played in the lawn and Scrabble in the dining hall, a separate tiny and starched dining room was built for the few Phoren Visitors who, Rajan thought, didn't like to mix with us hoi polloi (but they did), and the mess became a home away from home to all of us rowdies.
Of course we could never have those "Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff" on our menu but the hated corn flakes and porridge vanished from the dining tables.
And I started reclining on my dining chair stretching and placing my legs on the vacant chair opposite, smoking my perennial Wills Flakes using coffee cups as ash trays.
This reminds me of the Notice that was boldly displayed in our Ajanta Hotel in Vizagh:
"If you use our coffee cups as your ash trays, we will serve you your coffee in our ash trays!"
Quarrels and arguments freely erupted between boarders, for, it was the season of change (poribartan) in Bengal...the Left Front was in the offing and so were the Naxalites.
Talking of Naxalites, when I mentioned this word to my younger sisters at Gudur on my summer vacation, they asked me innocently:
"Are they something like our tube lights?"
Anyway the high point of our polite arguments was when the shy and silent American-returned Bengali gent, Dr BKR, retorted lustily, for a change:
"When the rich marwaris are grabbing the lands of our poor, what is wrong if a few of our poor Bengalis burn a couple of buses out of their hunger?"
And, of course, coarse jokes were flying to quell the pangs of our spiritual hunger when the menu turned out to be more insipid than usual.
I still recall the occasion when our otherwise gentle and shy Dr Chitnis, just back from America, joined our stale joke-telling session of the usual Baldev Singh Sardar jokes like the Napoleon joke and the Tongawalla joke, by narrating casually and solemnly his American Sardarjee joke:
In a California auditorium lots of ladies and gents assembled for a silent mimicry session. One by one the contenders were appearing on the stage and vying with each other. Each was supposed to silently act out with his hands and feet the title of a Hollywood hit and ask the audience to guess the movie's title.
Titles like 'Ten Commandments' and 'Bridge on the River Kwai' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire' were up for grabs and the first to guess got their toffees thrown at them.
Then came the turn of our Sardarjee. He asked a table fan to be brought and placed on a stool. When it was done and the fan was switched on, he stood in front of it with his back facing the fan's wind and slowly unbuttoned his pants a wee bit and bent his arse towards the fan. And asked:
"Guess what is the title of the film I showed you just now"
Everyone fell silent, perplexed.
And the auditorium was drowned in pin-drop silence.
And our Sardarjee asked:
"Can't you guess this simple thing? Amazing!"
And the audience shouted:
"No! We give up!"
And our Surd came out with his answer:
"Gond pe Wind!"
...Posted by Ishani
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