My brother and his lovely family are on their annual 'Desi Sojourn'. Last week they were in Bengaluru and stayed with us and I had the most wonderful time with his children.
My SiL pleaded to be taken to The MTR saying she has been married into the family 15 years and we haven't been kind enough to have taken her to (what she thinks is) the Mecca of Karnataka (Brahmin) cuisine. I had been there many years, maybe eons, ago when my father had taken me; there was no waiting then - Dad had a junior who was close to the Maiyya family and so we got preferential treatment. Or, maybe, the population was far less then and so there was no need for a queue.
Since I wasn't too keen on the idea, I behaved mean and didn't help her organise it. So she called the main branch on Lalbagh Road and asked the gentlemen on the other end a few questions: Is the menu different at the different time slots? If I were coming the first time, when would be a good time? etc. until the man realised he had better things to do and hung up on her! I was bemused by her line of questioning, but she didn't give up. She called again to make a reservation for lunch, emphasising her South Indian married surname in the hope that she'd get some brownie points! He asked her "number?" and she rattled off my phone number before she realised what he actually wanted to know was the number of people. And then he hung up, again! She was very pleased with herself and we, too, realised that we wouldn't have gone to a place that required so much effort in planning and secretly thanked her.
And so we drove down to MTR, Lalbagh Road, with the enthusiastic, curious children. We parked at the multilevel parking on K.H. Road and walked to MTR - since MTR is bang on the main road with heavy traffic, it was impossible finding parking. The walk from the parking area to MTR wasn't too long, but was certainly not a comfortable one. My niece was shocked by the lack of safety - "this is unsafe", she told me, as I held her small, soft palm in mine. "Are you hungry?", I asked her. "A bit", she said. "Good, this walk will help build your appetite!", I said, trying to sound chirpy to uplift her spirits. "This is very unsafe.", she reminded me.
Manoeuvring through vehicular and human traffic and getting past some butchers wasn't the best way to build an appetite!
We reached MTR after about a 10 minute walk only to find the place overflowing with people! But we were smug because we had a 'reservation'. So we went to the counter and were asked for a token number - my SiL wasn't given any! And we reconciled with the fact that we would have to wait. We were lead upstairs to another waiting area which was overflowing with people. I began to wonder if the slab could take the load of so many people in the area. We managed to get some seats for the little girls sat there, their faces flush from the walk. After a few minutes of waiting, my niece stood up and announced "Okay, let's go!". I was in half a mind to listen but managed to convince her to stay. After a 30 minute wait and some sweet-talking ('bonding', as my niece referred to it) we were ushered into a room with a large table and a noisy window AC. But after that walk and wait, it seemed like we had reached heaven! And then we were served the food that my SiL was so keen on eating. It was tasty, alright, but the process was so impersonal. There was no warmth in the way we were served food. It was heavy and the menu was quite uncoordinated - masala dosa for lunch was not my thing! But my SiL was enjoying herself and seemed like we had helped fulfil her 15 year wish! The fact, however, is that we may have never gone to MTR had it not been for my SiL - it's just not my kinda thing.
I wouldn't rate the experience as anything beyond 2 on a 0-10 scale - I cook better, tastier stuff and serve with a lot of affection! Why else would my bro have cursed me for having put on 4 kgs in the 6 days that he was with me! It was my way of getting back at my SiL's lovely family who sent the best melt-in-mouth motichoor ke laddoo from the national capital!!
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