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New York: Silence is golden - at least that is what one US eatery is banking on after taking a cue from Buddhist monks in India. Eat, a restaurant in Greenpoint near Brooklyn, is serving up a four-course meal of organic, locally-sourced food, but isn't allowing any chit-chat. The chef of the restaurant decided to run a monthly event where all diners must chow down in complete silence after spending time with Buddhist monks in India.
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That is a curious news item. All I can conclude is that Brooklyn must be a noisy place.
But some people, like our Saswat, prefer the nostalgic noise of NYC to the silence of Boston.
Anyway that news item took me all the way to my childhood. We were 7 noisy kids, spaced roughly 2 years apart. And except my mom, who ate last, the rest of us would squat on the floor for our night meal. And Father would try to impose the rule:
"No talking while eating!"
And we would try and obey for a couple of minutes, and the hum would start and the decibel level would gradually rise, like classical music recitals in our auditorium where pin-drop silence is expected from the connoisseurs in the front row. And the musicians on the stage would start tuning their sundry instruments for what looked like eternity. And each item would pick up like the waves on the Vizagh beach. Both would rise eventually to a crescendo before hitting the sands or stands. And end in a tremendous clapping sound followed by chitchat till the next wave picks up momentum.
Kids and silence don't commute, in the jargon of Quantum Mechanics. My D-i-L, who teaches LKG class at the Eurokids here, tells me that the only way to keep her kids quiet is to engage them in an Activity like drawing, coloring, singing or writing. And if she takes a moment's rest, they would all start whispering, followed by loitering like free electrons in copper...we call it 'drifting'.
But they would all tell her how much they missed her when she arrived a few minutes late to their class.
Ishani had her latest Parent-Teacher Meeting the other day...she is now in LKG. And her two teachers gave excellent reports of her brilliance. But Ishani's mom, being a teacher herself, pinned them down about Ishani's discipline. And they said that, after she finishes her Activity, she would go round helping her friends. But my D-i-L insisted feedback on her daughter's 'behavior'.
And then the kitten was out of the bag.
They said that it is impossible to keep Ishani quiet after her work was through...she would be talking to her friends who sit side by side till they are separated...once they had to split Ishani and Ananya and post them in different sections: Rose and Carnation. And, in the Assembly, Ishani is always found pinching her neighbor in front or tweaking the one by her side.
This was no news to me.
For, one day, while I was picking her up from school and driving her back, Ishani was saying 'bye' to a friend of hers, Lavanya (name changed on request). And I asked about this Lavanya, and Ishani said:
"Oh, she is a Good Girl...she does nothing but obey our teacher...she would shut up when asked to shut up, and jump when asked to jump"
Coming back to talking while eating, I recall the days in our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP in the late 1960s. Hostel food everywhere is monotonous. We used to have the complaint that we have Alu-Gobi for lunch and Gobi-Alu for dinner. One day I asked our Manager, Rajan, why he can't serve us Begun Bhaja (fried Brinjal). And he was aghast:
"I tried it one day...there were none left after the first five had their dinner....between them they devoured a ton of the slivers"
But, funnily, hostel food is greedily eaten by an occasional guest...and heavenly feedback given to Rajan and his cooks.
To kill the monotony of our dal-roti, three of us used to wait for each other and go to the dining hall together so we can gossip while eating and forget the monotony.
One day my friends invited a senior professor of theirs, Prof D, for dinner since his wife was away at Cal. And he duly arrived and found us waiting for him to enter the dining hall. While we three finished our grub in five minutes and were dying for our smokes, Prof D was still found in the first course...fish curry. And we waited and waited since he was like Father...no talking while eating...only chewing, munching and slurping.
Finally, he finished his Double Full Meal (Rajan must have gone into his prayer mode) and declared apologetically:
"Some people eat slow and some others fast"
...a terrific euphemism for:
"Some people eat little and some others a whale"
Prof D must have chastised his wife upon her return why she couldn't cook fish curry like Rajan's.
Once there was a Diwali Special Dinner in our Faculty Hostel. And several senior profs were invited (along with their wives) by their younger colleagues...hoping for promotion perhaps...there is no free dinner either anywhere in this world...
And suddenly there was this bomb explosion from under a table of foursome, shattering the dignity of the occasion...inquiries revealed that an Ishani-Equivalent had brought an Atom Bomb on the sly and lit it with his fag...
So much for the silence of faculty hostel dinners.
As for Buddhist monks, here is the leading para of an essay I must have read half a dozen times over 30 years:
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New York: Silence is golden - at least that is what one US eatery is banking on after taking a cue from Buddhist monks in India. Eat, a restaurant in Greenpoint near Brooklyn, is serving up a four-course meal of organic, locally-sourced food, but isn't allowing any chit-chat. The chef of the restaurant decided to run a monthly event where all diners must chow down in complete silence after spending time with Buddhist monks in India.
...ToI, Page 11, Thursday October 10, 2013
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That is a curious news item. All I can conclude is that Brooklyn must be a noisy place.
But some people, like our Saswat, prefer the nostalgic noise of NYC to the silence of Boston.
Anyway that news item took me all the way to my childhood. We were 7 noisy kids, spaced roughly 2 years apart. And except my mom, who ate last, the rest of us would squat on the floor for our night meal. And Father would try to impose the rule:
"No talking while eating!"
And we would try and obey for a couple of minutes, and the hum would start and the decibel level would gradually rise, like classical music recitals in our auditorium where pin-drop silence is expected from the connoisseurs in the front row. And the musicians on the stage would start tuning their sundry instruments for what looked like eternity. And each item would pick up like the waves on the Vizagh beach. Both would rise eventually to a crescendo before hitting the sands or stands. And end in a tremendous clapping sound followed by chitchat till the next wave picks up momentum.
Kids and silence don't commute, in the jargon of Quantum Mechanics. My D-i-L, who teaches LKG class at the Eurokids here, tells me that the only way to keep her kids quiet is to engage them in an Activity like drawing, coloring, singing or writing. And if she takes a moment's rest, they would all start whispering, followed by loitering like free electrons in copper...we call it 'drifting'.
But they would all tell her how much they missed her when she arrived a few minutes late to their class.
Ishani had her latest Parent-Teacher Meeting the other day...she is now in LKG. And her two teachers gave excellent reports of her brilliance. But Ishani's mom, being a teacher herself, pinned them down about Ishani's discipline. And they said that, after she finishes her Activity, she would go round helping her friends. But my D-i-L insisted feedback on her daughter's 'behavior'.
And then the kitten was out of the bag.
They said that it is impossible to keep Ishani quiet after her work was through...she would be talking to her friends who sit side by side till they are separated...once they had to split Ishani and Ananya and post them in different sections: Rose and Carnation. And, in the Assembly, Ishani is always found pinching her neighbor in front or tweaking the one by her side.
This was no news to me.
For, one day, while I was picking her up from school and driving her back, Ishani was saying 'bye' to a friend of hers, Lavanya (name changed on request). And I asked about this Lavanya, and Ishani said:
"Oh, she is a Good Girl...she does nothing but obey our teacher...she would shut up when asked to shut up, and jump when asked to jump"
Coming back to talking while eating, I recall the days in our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP in the late 1960s. Hostel food everywhere is monotonous. We used to have the complaint that we have Alu-Gobi for lunch and Gobi-Alu for dinner. One day I asked our Manager, Rajan, why he can't serve us Begun Bhaja (fried Brinjal). And he was aghast:
"I tried it one day...there were none left after the first five had their dinner....between them they devoured a ton of the slivers"
But, funnily, hostel food is greedily eaten by an occasional guest...and heavenly feedback given to Rajan and his cooks.
To kill the monotony of our dal-roti, three of us used to wait for each other and go to the dining hall together so we can gossip while eating and forget the monotony.
One day my friends invited a senior professor of theirs, Prof D, for dinner since his wife was away at Cal. And he duly arrived and found us waiting for him to enter the dining hall. While we three finished our grub in five minutes and were dying for our smokes, Prof D was still found in the first course...fish curry. And we waited and waited since he was like Father...no talking while eating...only chewing, munching and slurping.
Finally, he finished his Double Full Meal (Rajan must have gone into his prayer mode) and declared apologetically:
"Some people eat slow and some others fast"
...a terrific euphemism for:
"Some people eat little and some others a whale"
Prof D must have chastised his wife upon her return why she couldn't cook fish curry like Rajan's.
Once there was a Diwali Special Dinner in our Faculty Hostel. And several senior profs were invited (along with their wives) by their younger colleagues...hoping for promotion perhaps...there is no free dinner either anywhere in this world...
And suddenly there was this bomb explosion from under a table of foursome, shattering the dignity of the occasion...inquiries revealed that an Ishani-Equivalent had brought an Atom Bomb on the sly and lit it with his fag...
So much for the silence of faculty hostel dinners.
As for Buddhist monks, here is the leading para of an essay I must have read half a dozen times over 30 years:
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people –
the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to
happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an
aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No
one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through
the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her
dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited
whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on
the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other
way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than
once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me
everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance,
got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of
all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them
seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at
Europeans.
....Shooting an Elephant: George Orwell
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