When side dish became the main course…..

I live in a duplex house located on a desolate piece of the Madras – Bangalore Trunk road (MBT road) once the artery connecting the erstwhile Madras with the erstwhile Bangalore. That duty has now been handed over to the NH4 bypass road that now joins the cities of Chennai and Bengaluru.

Being bachelors who have this innate dislike of self cooking a dinner, my friends and I are always on the lookout for eateries to satiate our stomachs in the fag end of the day. One such discovery was the “Madurai sri Pandi Muniyandi Vilas” strategically located at the thiruvalam junction catering to the needs of hungry officers returning from work, long distance trailer drivers and a collection of other exotic people.

Today, we went to Muniyandi as usual at about 8.30 pm and were waiting for the usual “anna” to place the customary plaintain leaf that signaled the fact that you have been noticed and that you shall be attended to in a few minutes. However, things went the other way on the adjacent table.

Apparently, the man (for convenience “thambi”) who served the side dish for the dosas and other items (main dishes were the sole jurisdiction of “anna”) had poured the sambar ON the dosa on a customer’s plate. This, for some reason irritated the man who was being served. A war of words followed, slowly giving way to a slew of tamil expletives.

The people in the 15 seater hotel stopped eating. Nobody cared whether he got his “brota” or “sutny” or “chalna”. All eyes (and ears) were on the fighting pair (and the unparliamentary words being exchanged). The “anna” launched himself into the battlefield and tried to pacify the pair. Unfortunately, today was not his day. The words gave way to action…

People in India have a bad habit of tacitly encouraging duels, more so if they are third parties. This is not to say that they add fuel to the fire (which sometimes does happen), but they start enjoying the fight after it exceeds a certain level. This in fact encourages the fighters to save their grace in a big gathering and this takes the ordinary altercation to guerilla warfare levels.  

The customer, extremely furious by now (truth being that he had exhausted his foul vocabulary), had turned violent. Armed with his plate in one hand, he rose as if to annihilate the “thambi”. The sambar splattered everwhere partly because of the violent jerk and mainly because of the infinite dilution (it would have followed Ostwald’s law perfectly). The roast fell to the ground. It would have been glucose by now had the man eaten it. Now, since half his weaponry had been wasted, the man raised his hand and dealt a blow to the “thambi”. All hell broke loose. Everyone started shouting his own views about who was wrong in the first place. The “thambi” gave a counter blow and “anna” was desperately trying to prevent a murder.

This pandemonium had caught the attention of the highway patrol who swiftly jumped into action. What else could have been more interesting to those poor souls who keep looking for other state vehicles without national permits and in state vehicles with improper number plates.

The police took the side of the hotel walla (they can’t get free biriyani if they had done otherwise) and soon the customer was outnumbered 5 to 1. The police took the man outside and were shocked to hear that all this was because of pouring sambhar on the dosa. 

The place slowly returned to normal. Anna was now advising thambi on how to avoid conflicts while simultaneously serving people with kal-dosas that were as good as stone and half-boils that would have been chickens had they been left untended to in the heat. I was surprised to find my plate clean though I was served two dosas initially. Obviously my hand and mouth had entered auto-pilot mode during the melee. I left the place paying the 25 bucks and feeling the satisfaction of having watched a full length action sequence. 

I have read that “A lot can happen over coffee” in Café Coffee Day outlets. However, today I realized that “a lot more can happen over dosa” @ 1/10 th the price. Courtesy – sri pandi muniyandi.

Ms. S

Right from the time she studied tenth standard, I have known her through my mom, who was her math teacher. Ms. S was consistently a bright student and was also one of my mom’s all time favorite student. Hailing from a poor family, she was determined to do well and almost always topped her class in the Government Higher Secondary school. My mom had big dreams for her and Ms. S was well on the way to achieving each of those shared ambitions. For starters, she became the first graduate in her entire family by successfully completing the Bachelor of Science in Mathematics course. Having got the confidence of completing a degree, Ms. S was motivated to become a teacher and this aspiration led her to join the teacher s training course. Being a person who loved her independence, she had no intentions of burdening her family any further and hence wanted to stand on her own legs. She helped my mom in taking tuition classes and eventually took over the responsibility of teaching the children. 

The student had finally become a teacher.

Always wanting to improve herself, Ms. S felt that her command over English was not enough to make her a good teacher. She enrolled for a spoken English class and was steadily on the way to becoming a good teacher with improved speaking skills. Her family as well as everyone around her was proud of her growth.

It was a November evening in Chennai and the monsoon rains were not in a mood to abate any sooner. Ms. S braved the rains to attend her spoken English class. Little did she, or for that matter anybody else think that it would be her last class - whether as a student or as a teacher. The news of her demise was shocking to say the least, but more than that, it was strange. According to reliable sources, the death of Ms. S has been attributed to head injury and suffocation. It is believed that she fell into an open drain and hit her head while doing so. I presume that she lost consciousness immediately and the overflowing drain water would have been sufficient to choke her and suffocate her to death. I am convinced that there was no foul play, however I believe that at-least one person is guilty. Not guilty of murder, but guilty of not saving a life in danger. Let me tell you why. 

The place where the incident took place was a busy market area in Chennai and I am pretty sure that there were a handful of people in that road during the time of the incident. For all I might know, there may have even been one or two buses plying on that road. Given this scenario, I am pretty sure at least one person would have seen her falling into the hole. The person could have been on the road or perhaps a passenger sitting by the window on a bus. Maybe the person felt too lazy to walk out in the rain and lend a helping hand. Perhaps, he/she thought that it was not their business or was scared to be answering questions to the police if there were any problems. Whatever the case, now a precious life has been lost.

This incident has led me in taking up a personal oath. I decided that I would never think for a moment before saving someone in danger. I have already done it once and almost lost my life, but that is not going to stop me. May her soul rest in peace.

PS: This is a true incident and the case detailed here is pending police enquiry as on date. Thanks to  http://anecdotesofananth.blogspot.in/  for the constant goading that resulted in the final materialization of this post.