An order of ‘Vegetable Platter’

Life in the Middle East, had its unique blend of myriad experiences; while some of my experiences were downright amusing, others were distinctly, distasteful.  There was an anecdote that made us sit up and take notice; that we were really not within India.  Normally, it felt like we were living within our own home country; considering, that there was a large expatriate population consisting mainly of Indians and a mix of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos.  Since we were staying in a part of the City that was predominantly populated with Indians, we never had a feeling that we were out of India.  Further, the Bank I was working for, though Head Quartered in the Middle-East, had a large sprinkling of Indian employees; more so in the Audit Department, that I was part of.  Other than a few Middle-Eastern nationals, all of my other colleagues were Indians.  Moreover, the predominantly Indian part of the City, where we had set up our residence, had popular Indian Restaurants (which included an Udupi Restaurant, a few Gujarati and Punjabi Restaurants; all of which, mostly served vegetarian fare).

I was (during the time of this anecdote) still new to the country, having lived there just for over a year.  My wife and I had been invited to attend a new year dinner party hosted by our Audit Department.  The dinner was mainly to celebrate the declaring of year-end bonus to all the staff of our Department.  The dinner was arranged in a nearby downtown Lebanese Restaurant (named Mais Al Ghanim) which had been in existence since 1957, or so; and was popular for its regal ambience and Lebanese cuisine.  Many of the middle-easterners flocked to this restaurant for the variety and quality of the choicest Arabic dishes, the restaurant had to offer.  As soon as we entered the Restaurant, we saw some of the loyal patrons smoking hookah, blowing multi-hued smoke through their mouth and nostrils; and there was a royal look about the Restaurant.  We were impressed with the choice of the Restaurant for our annual dinner.

The Menu consisted of largely non-vegetarian dishes, details of which, I did not bother to read nor even know.  The dinner gathering comprising families of my Audit Department colleagues, were mostly non-vegetarians; excepting for three of us; wife, self, and my boss’s wife.  One after the other, my colleagues and their families started ordering their choicest non-vegetarian dishes, having regard to their palettes.  We, the tiny vegetarian group, were just fidgeting with the Menu, unable to narrow down on the dishes to order.  My boss’s wife had some idea about a vegetarian dish named Baba Ghanoush which, she said, she had tried out earlier and tasted great.  Baba Ghanoush is basically eggplant blended up with lemon juice, sesame seeds, and a generous sprinkling of sea salt.  We went along with this choice, as we did not know much about the other vegetarian dishes (although, the details of ingredients were noted boldly in brackets, against each item in the Menu; however, the Menu did not specifically mention whether the dish was vegetarian or non-vegetarian).

It was the first time that we had savoured this dish, as an accompaniment along with Arabic bread (something similar to the Indian Phulka-roti); Baba Ghanoush tasted awesome.  In order to be safe, our colleagues advised us to just stick with this dish (Baba Ghanoush) and the ubiquitous, hummus; hummus is a vegetarian dish made with chickpeas, olive oil, sesame seeds, lemon juice and salt.  No food order is complete without hummus in any Arabic Restaurants in the Middle East.

Midway through the meal, my mind was in a whirl; how could I stay content with just Baba Ghanoush and hummus, while the rest of company were enjoying their choicest, tasty food?  I had narrowed down on an item in the Menu named ‘Vegetable Platter’, which was without doubt a vegetarian fare.  Boldly in brackets, names of familiar veggies, like, tomatoes, carrots, capsicum, cabbage were clearly mentioned.  I discussed this with my vegetarian group and the other two, nodded.  We were, looking forward to a beautiful salad of fresh, finely cut aforementioned, vegetables, served in style with some dip.  I, promptly, summoned the Waiter and ordered the item.  Some of my colleagues were looking at me with mild amusement; I did not get their joke.  I patiently ignored them and waited for the order to be served.  After a while, the Waiter gingerly placed the ordered item on the table in front of me.  Many of my colleagues could not contain their merriment; their laughter echoed through the Restaurant.  In front of me was placed a large basket, containing complete and whole, un-cut veggies in all its glory; shiny, wholesome vegetables stared at me; a large cabbage, a couple of huge tomatoes; a couple of huge capsicums; two or three large glowing carrots; each item of the veggie weighing about half a kilo.  I was flabbergasted.  I summoned the Waiter and asked him, what is the meaning of all this and how do we eat these?  He was unrepentant.  He calmly said, “Sir, this is the order you had requested, Vegetable Platter”.  Amidst the throes of the laughter, one of my colleagues suggested we take home the vegetable basket and prepare South Indian 'sambar' with the veggies.  We precisely did that for the subsequent few days!

Stray thoughts on ‘what constitutes Happiness’

In a recent article, what I read about ‘Happiness’, made me thoughtful and my brain cells were activated (normally, they are dormantJ).  The article went on, “Happiness is the ultimate purpose of our existence, whether as a conscious or unconscious decision. It is every human being's inalienable right. Yet, how do we measure happiness? It comes in so many different forms and for such diverse reasons that there can never be a consensus of what constitutes happiness.” The words rang true.   The author had so eloquently expressed it.  When I looked up on the Wikipedia and many other resources (Thank God for Google!) there were numerous and confusing definitions of what constituted happiness and I felt that the subject was too complex for a confused layman, like me, to handle; in effect, there was no consensus on the definition of happiness as concluded by the above said author.

Man, has lived and survived in this World for thousands of years, yet, if happiness is the ultimate purpose of all our existence, is there no simple answer to this perennial question of how to be happy?

I held this thought.  A beautiful quote had stuck with me, in my sub-conscious mind for a long time. 

“It is so simple to be happy….. yet it is so difficult to be simple”.  This was a quote from a Hindi movie of yesteryear “Bawarchi”, a cult classic from the inimitable Hrishikesh Mukherjee.  Although, this truism had a deep sense of meaning and suggested an elaborate word play, in effect, this implied to me, that simplicity, could be the answer to happiness.  If one leads a simple life with no material wants or desires; following asceticism, good virtues and moral character, life would be much simpler and thereby hangs a tale; Man, can be happy, if he chooses to remain simple.

It is not in my character to give up on the material wants and desires; I do not wish to lead an ascetic’s life, though I believe I have strong moral character and have some fine virtues.  Excuse me, it is not that I crave to own a palatial bungalow in Sadashivanagar or own a high-end Merc or BMW or Audi or even travel around the world, first class.  There is no end to what a person can crave for and the World can offer.  I, on other hand, would love to enjoy the material and mundane pleasures, life has to offer, within the limited resources, I have. I am digressing.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that, happiness, is after all, one’s state of mind.  When we are at peace with our inner self and surrounded by Nature’s wonders, perhaps, a wave of ‘well-being’ emotions would sweep over us (could I say this is happiness, or may be, one would call it euphoria?); On the other extreme, just as an illustration, when we are walking on the street, in a heavy traffic zone filled with smoke emanating from vehicles; and we see dirt and squalor strewn all around, an opposite kind of wave, perhaps, nausea, would sweep over us, making us feel unpleasant; could this constitute unhappiness during that moment?  Is this too simplistic an explanation, for what happiness or unhappiness could mean to ordinary humans?

Have we all not heard the famous quote, that ‘darkness’ is the absence of light?  Similarly, in my mind, the absence of inner strife (our devilish thoughts and conflicting emotions) and/or the absence of problems/issues we face in our daily life, constitutes happiness. Apart from this, I really do not understand, what one would call happiness.  May be, an ascetic who is in deep penance in the Himalayan jungles would understand the term happiness in a better perspective.  I, for one, cannot. In that sense, in my present state, I am profoundly happy, thank you!

When 'cooled' coffee tasted great!

Coffee, traditionally has been served hot.  People all over, love to drink the hot beverage, savouring the aroma of the steaming, freshly ground coffee beans; with coffee beans sourced variedly from Africa to South America; to India.  Cold coffee, generally meant iced coffee and different recipes have been explored for people to savour and enjoy.

There was a time during my school days, when I used to love the cold coffee (or 'cooled' coffee, if you want to crunch the grammar); mind you, not the iced coffee variety, but simply the hot coffee preserved in a steel vessel for a few hours. Just to be clear, coffee meant the South Indian filter coffee added with milk and sugar.

School life then, to me meant, play in the school and more play outside the school hours.  Since attendance at the school was mandatory and some little home-work was unavoidable as part of the school life, I attended to these chores with distaste.  As soon as the school was finished for the day, I ran home with my school-bag, dumped it in a corner; hastily changed my dress from the smelly school uniform and was eager to rush out to play.  My playmates were waiting for my arrival from school. It was a mystery to me, how some of the boys had managed to arrive at the play field early, even before me.

Before I could hurry out of the house, mother shouts from the kitchen.

‘Hari, have your coffee before you go out to play’.

I run into the kitchen.  ‘Where is the coffee?’.

‘Wait a second, I will heat the coffee for you’.

I say, ‘No time for that.  Give me the cold coffee itself’.

‘What is the rush, your friends will wait.  Heavens are not going to descend.  Just wait for a few minutes, I will heat the coffee for you’.

‘No mom, give me cold coffee itself or else I am off, without drinking any coffee’, the ultimatum. Mother surrenders. 

‘Ok.  As you wish’.

My mother transfers the cold coffee in a steel tumbler and pushes it across towards me.  I gulp the coffee.  The cold coffee tastes great; there is a lingering sweet, after-taste.

In those days, in my home, in order to save on milk and sugar (you see, sugar was generally available in Ration Shops; and small, insignificant quantities were allocated to each family; some of the families used to buy sugar in Retail, where the price was double the cost of rationed sugar) coffee used to be prepared by mixing the filtered coffee decoction with milk and sugar only once in the morning and again once in the evening.  If one happens to be late to attend the family coffee-drinking session, the already pre-mixed coffee used to be re-heated in a steel vessel on a kerosene stove.

Coming back to my school days’ story, after gulping the cold coffee, I hurry out to join my playmates, who had already commenced the game, without me.  I was made to wait until the game, which was already midway, had finished.  I was more than determined that from the following day, I would join the game early on; and was firm on having only cold coffee in the evenings. In the mornings, I purposely got late to the family coffee-drinking session by lingering on the 'teeth-brushing' routine; so that I could have my coffee cold.  From that day on, my determination had stayed intact, as I was hooked on cold coffee, for a long, long time, perhaps, until I enrolled in the Pre-University. In my younger mind, cold coffee tasted great; and was the only way to consume coffee.

Back to the present, when I was narrating this incident to my cousin, he told me that he too had liked his coffee cold during his younger days.  I was surprised; was this a universal phenomenon in young boys of my generation or was it confined to only boys within my family?  Perhaps, a study on this subject, like millions of other studies being conducted all over the world on millions of zany subjects, would establish that.

Would I, perhaps, care to drink my coffee cold, now?  No, thank you; I just happen to enjoy the steaming hot cup of filter coffee served straight from the gas stove!