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After you cross the cloths hangar you get the one and only South Indian Hotel called Apsara. Well, it was never a 'hotel'...it was just a cafe' or restaurant. These high-sounding words came to South Indian towns much later...anything where you get some 'tiffin' and coffee was happily called a Coffee Hotel. This tiffin also is a misnomer...Webster defines it as a light midday meal or luncheon. But tiffin in South meant Breakfast, Tea , Snacks, Supper or anything but a meal. School-going kids took with them a 'tiffin box'. Office-goers had tiffin on their way to office.
During the 1950s in our Nellore District, all offices were manned by blue-blooded men. Mostly they were 'clerks' or 'writers'. Women were rarely found outside their homes. The few Lady Teachers were either hard-up or the progressive Christians. All the ma'ams in our school had 'Christian' names like Raanemma (for Raani), Mariamma (for Mary), or simply Missamma (for Miss; there was a TERRIFFIC Telugu movie called Missamma. I still watch it online to grab a bit of my childhood. The movie is simply epochal).
So, all ladies were 'housewives' (now called fancifully 'home makers'). They didn' have the time to cook lunch as well as make tiffin for their white-collar hubbies. So, they just cooked lunch and packed it in lunch-boxes. The guy would carry the lunch-box in a shoulder-bag and visit Ajanta Hotel on his way to Collector Office. By a prior arrangement, he would meet a couple of his friends there waiting for him. All of them troop in and occupy their favorite Table near the window far from the (stinking) kitchen. And wait for the Waiter who would make them wait as long as he can. One waiter is employed to serve as a Server at least four tables and so he is ever flitting from table to table.
And then they would start shouting and yelling: "Hey Waiter! Take our order!" And the waiter would scowl and appear with four glasses of water in his left hand with one finger dipped in each. And then the writers would unanimously scold him for dipping dirty fingers in their 'good water' (good for drinking):
Like Hardy said: "Don't put your hand in it...I have to drink that water!":
http://www.220.ro/funny/LAUREL-HARDY/HvNk0em6do/
And then they would ask for their table to be cleaned. The Waiter yells: "Table-Clean!" and disappears. Eventually the Cleaner appears with his iron bucket in which are dumped sundry used-up plates and side-plates and glasses in one repulsive hand and a brown cloth in the other. The cloth is wet and smells of some exotic brand of recycled antiseptic lotion. After he dumps all the used ware in his bucket, he smears the table top with his wet cloth and disappears. And the drill begins again...you know now why you have to have company of your colleagues in this adventure...to keep up the office-gossip and your morale.
The Waiter appears with a pencil in his ear and a booklet of stamp-size papers in his pocket. First question asked by the Leader is the default: "What's on the menu today?" This is to buy time. The Waiter recites the invariant menu: "Idli, Plain Dosa, Masal Dosa, Upma, Peasarut, Uthapam, Poori, Bonda, Bajji and Vada". Then an unending to-and-fro debate starts on who will have what and while it goes on and on, the Waiter is called to the far-off table...you know now...
When he appears again, the Leader would give out the consolidated Order: "Two plates Plain Dosa, Two Masal Dosa, one plate Idli and three plate Poori."
The Waiter disappears and by the time the gossip enters which Official is 'eating' how much money, which is under transfer, and which is having an illicit affair with his neighbor... the Waiter would arrive with all the 8 plates stacked like a juggler and dump them on the table and try to 'deal' them correctly. And vanishes.
Now, the South Indian Hotels used to be generous...there is practically no limit to the contents of the 'side-plates' on free offer..there are 3 around each plate: 'coconut chutney', 'hot hot sambar' and 'chilli sauce'. So, our Clerks would take advantage of this and keep asking for more and more of the same chutney and sambar and chiilli-sauce. The Management takes care of this contingency and the 'extras' would progressively become thinner and thinner with diluted water. And there would be a fight with the Waiter...they would ask for 'solid' chutney; and the Waiter would plead helpless saying it is exhausted; but the single newcomer guy on the neighboring table would be getting his initial side-plate with rock-solid chutney and there would be a row...
Finally, Coffee is ordered. 'Full Coffee' is too expensive and so our Clerks would ask for: "2/3 Cut-Coffee".
And finally after half an hour or more, the Leader would ask for the Bill. The Waiter would pick up his booklet from his pocket and pencil from his earlobe and goes into the 'calculate' mode and jots down some number and hands it to the Leader. And there would always be a discrepancy from the mental additions of the Waiter and the Leader. And the Waiter would strike out his earlier number and post an erratum and sign it with a flourish.
Now our Writers never believed in Dutch-Cuts...each paying his part of the consolidated Bill. There would ensue a terrific fight among the three as to who would pay the Bill...each rushing to the Counter saying it is his pleasure...and crowd the Counter. Finally the Winner would pay the day's Bill and the fight would look so pleasingly cordial...but make no mistake...unsaid accounts are kept for the whole month at home and by month-end it all squares up...if it didn't, the kanjoos parasite would be dropped and avoided and his place taken by a new one for the next month.
Lunch Time: All three would unpack their lunch boxes and one of them would plead that he is getting bored eating the same brinjal curry and tomato sambar everyday and would suggest that they go out for lunch for the day. The other two would gladly agree and the Hotel tamasha starts again almost everyday.
The lunch boxes get back home untouched and their wives have to consume them at night...the bread-winning hubbies would always get hot hot night-meals prepared afresh...
Don't think that the whole thing is rather tough and unequal on the home-makers...the three wives get together as soon as their hubbies leave for office and indulge in non-stop gossip of their own...you know...and prepare Community Snacks and eat them hot and spicy...by rotation.
Please do believe me...very often Snacks on the billboards of Hyderabadi Hotels are spelled:
"Snakes List"...
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