Lets Talk Food Baby!!

Here's the deal...the previous post...A very dear friend of me who tagged me promptly informs me that I had to do it differently....Missy not doing it firse...too much effort!!

Too much effort reminds me of "eating fish"!! Trust me....the calories you burn searching for the bones in a piece are more than what the godforsaken piece will give you! No wonder it's "The recommended Meat"!! This last sunday my landlord happened to call me to his house for this feast that he had organized. One of my roommate's hates bengali food to the extent that he refused.. sayin that he had an upset tummy.

Now me and this other room mate of mine were left looking at eachother with no option but to go. Come Sunday we dressed in our smartest best clothes and reached his house only to realise that everyone else whas in Kurta pajama's....white one's!!And I was there...in my orange T shirt and blue jeans..."standing out" in the crowd. If there's one place where i didn't want to stand out...This was it!!

We were ushered in by some bengali speaking servants of his and taken to a room where we saw 3 old ladies sitting on the bed. We were asked to sit on the bed....The 3 ladies looked as lost as us. It was yet another awkward moment...i looked around and could only see females(read aunties) running around. I couldn't see a single male member....!! I wondered if we were supposed to stay on the ground floor as well....We moved out to the balcony before the ladies started bombarding us with questions which we half understood...

**THe bad part - Noone except my landlord speaks hindi in his house, or was that the good part???**

Luckily I did see the landlord's son standing there. He is an adorable 8 yr old ...extremely mild mannered for an 8 yr old. He wanted to play "catch-catch" with us...we were more than glad to entertain him. 5 minutes in and me having dropped 2 catches, a person comes out and tells us ....in bengali....that we need to go up and we complied.We saw people sitting in a line on huge tables waiting eagerly to be fed. We were duly alloted seats in the center of the room which made us the objects of attention!! If we were lost before, this almost scared us. All we could hear was people chattering away to glory and shouts to "jhol" and "lucchi" reverberating the room. I guess those are the only two words we could understand! Don't worry...you will too if u come to calcutta....the two most famous dishes in Calcutta!

The first thing we were served was salt and lemon...yes in the plate that i was supposed to eat. Next came some kinda red colored chutney made of some weird vegetable..I'll never know, it tasted pretty ok though! I for one am not a big rice eater...and thats exactly what i was served next. And then there was nothing for a while...I looked at my friend and then around and saw all these people mixing the red thing with the rice....Not knowing what to do i did it as well.. . the feeling was almost that of me in a foregn land eating foreign food. What followed wsa typical bong food....dal, aaloo "dom", "maach"(without bones), "maach"(with bones) and more "maach"(with lots of bones). O ya...did I forget to mention...there were no spoons!!!!

After all was done, there were "mishti". Had I known we'd be getting so much of it, I'd have skipped the "maches"!! I love Cal for its sweets and only its sweets. Awesomest rosogulla....divine sandesh.....yumm ...slurpppp. Okay, lets move away from food!

Its been 3 months and a lil more in Cal for me.....Howsoever much I might crib about the place it does have its own charm. The people are always friendly, the taxi walas don't try and cheat you, the food is awesome, the city is cheap and there is soo much to explore. It ain't that bad a place....but I still miss Delhi! 3 months compared to 9 YEARS...and you still wonder why, you still ask me why....!!?? :)

More lataaa...Nowz not for ever!