1. Have an Interesting Snippet to Share : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Eat, Drink and Evolve

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by satchitananda, Aug 22, 2012.

  1. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    17,880
    Likes Received:
    25,953
    Trophy Points:
    590
    Gender:
    Female
    [JUSTIFY]A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to attend a wedding reception. (I had already mentioned it in another snippet). It was in a very post hotel in town. A pretty grand but very sober (despite the cocktails that were served) affair. :-D I am appalled these days at the lavish receptions where there is an unabashed display of wealth, glamour, huge queues of people waiting to greet the bride and groom. Eventually when they make it to the stage, they are blessed with the opportunity to stand with the bridal couple and have a picture and video taken. The last couple of receptions I have attended have on the contrary been done in excellent taste and a pleasure to go to.

    Despite all this, there was something that happened there that took me back to old days - days when Satchi (no, not I, that was my mind) was young and silly. No, plain stupid. [​IMG] She was in college and the department had brought the students on a "study tour" of Bangalore, Mysore and Ooty. (It sounds more like a honeymoon trail if you ask me). Anyway, one evening in Bangalore the students were let loose on MG Road (circa 1982). They were told that they could go where they liked, eat where they liked and come back to a predetermined place by 9 pm. Everything sounded great. So they wandered a bit, had a glimpse of Indira Gandhi who whizzed by in an open car waving to the crowds, and eventually got down to the business of finding somewhere to eat. From my present knowledge of MG Road, I presume they turned onto St. Marks' Road or may be Brigade Road and started looking at various joints. Most of them were "bar and restaurant". Satchi the prude refused to step into them. Her concept of a bar was a place where decadent men drank themselves into a stupor and then misbehaved. (At that time, Satchi firmly believed that men were a dangerous species unfit for human consumption) :hide:. Restaurant after restaurant - it was the same story. She refused to step in. Nothing anyone said could get her to change her mind. Somewhere around 8.45 pm everyone decided it was time to head back to the meeting point. I cannot describe adequately how roundly Satchi was cursed that evening [​IMG] by her starving class mates. Eventually they returned to the hotel where they were put up and made do with Laxminarayan Chivda brought from Pune :-(.

    Times change, people change. This ignorant Satchi once went to Delhi for a 15 day workshop. There on the last evening, the director of the institute had held a grand dinner for all the participants in his house. The waiters were going around offering people starters. The usual stuff - paneer tikka, koftas etc. Satchi took one of those and bit into it. Just then the lady standing next to her asked the waiter what it was. He said it was mutton kofta. Satchi was in a state of :shock:. She went and spat it out and all evening she was in a state of abject misery. She kept rinsing her mouth out all evening, again and again [​IMG] - a good action replay of Lady Macbeth. That was the first time.

    Later on she went abroad to study and the situation repeated itself. She went to an Indian corner shop near the hostel and bought herself some samosas from the vegetarian tray. She came home and ate two - three bites. Something was different. She suddenly became suspicious and asked her friend to check out. The friend took a bite and confirmed it was beef. Same routine of misery, rinse mouth repeatedly took place and she went to the owner of the shop (Sardarji - sweet old man) and complained bitterly. He offered to replace the samosa and give her another one. Catch her eating one more samosa from that shop. He said he could not help it if customers mixed up the two when picking up samosas. He had a fair point.

    The hostel where she lived had a kitchen with cupboards where one could leave one's pots and pans. One cupboard was shared by Satchi and her friends. One day a friend said he had borrowed her pan to cook chicken and thanked her. Satchi was furious and in tears. If words could kill, that guy would have been mince meat being cooked in the same pan. [​IMG] She could not bear the thought of someone using her pan to cook non-veg. She could not think of using that pan to cook again. But a student on a scholarship can barely think of buying pans again and again. A compromise was found. Another friend offered to use the pan two-three times to cook veg food and then give back the pan to Satchi. That was better than nothing. Satchi accepted.

    Coming back to the present and the reception, after some time of chatting with friends, we went to have our dinner. I was determined to eat light and healthy. So I took my plate and headed straight for the salad counter. It was a delight - so many different varieties of salads. I helped myself to most of them. Then I found myself a nice place to sit and eat. I ate a few pieces of a salad that looked like paneer. Then I wondered why it had such a chewy consistency. May be it was not paneer, it might be tofu. However I had not eaten tofu of this texture either. But who knows? I have not eaten everything that exists in this world. I am pretty adventurous about trying out new foods. But something would not let me be. After I had put away my plate, I went back to the salad bar and checked out the label below this dish. To my horror, it was red in colour (the only red amongst all the greens) and said it was chicken salad. This time round I felt bad that I had not been more careful [​IMG], but then decided there was no point in self flagellation. I have over the years developed sufficient trust in the God above and believe He will forgive me a genuine mistake.

    It has indeed been a long journey indeed from the young girl who would not step into a bar cum restaurant to a person who can forgive herself when she eats chicken. As my niece [​IMG] me I had had some high protein. So count one's blessings. I would like to believe that I have finally grown up after all these years.[/JUSTIFY]
     
    12 people like this.
    Loading...

  2. Kamalji

    Kamalji IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    13,153
    Likes Received:
    5,818
    Trophy Points:
    545
    Gender:
    Male
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Dear Satchi,

    So u being a veg, do get ur share of protiens from us nonveg guys eh , eating nonveg on the sly eh ! More than u, it is harsha who is very particular about veg and what she eats.Do u know , she checks foreggs in choclates, for rennet in cheese, she will not have a cake if she is not sure it does not have eggs and so on.

    The end result is so may choclates are reserved for me, for she and daughter wont touch them, and i am the sole winner.

    HAHA.

    So enjoy tjhe mistakes , and dont feel guilty, it was not yr fault, these bloopers happen sometimes.

    Regards

    kamal
     
    1 person likes this.
  3. satchitananda

    satchitananda IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    17,880
    Likes Received:
    25,953
    Trophy Points:
    590
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Kamalji, I don't even bother to check. I know for certain cheese has rennet. But did you know that rennet can also be obtained from micro-organisms? So one can eat vegetarian cheese. As for eggs, I have eaten eggs off and on, so it is not an issue. Only cocktails and "cock tails" are a problem for me. Anything that moves is taboo.

    Having said which I am reading a book where there is an interview with a Jain nun. Gosh, it is so frightening to read about how strict they are. Imagine even western medicines are taboo because so many animals are tested. She talks of another nun who died of TB because she was not treated on time.

    So somewhere there are practical limitations on "how vegetarian" we can be. I sometimes think non-vegetarians are lucky in that they don't have to worry or bother wherever in the world they go. It is only vegetarians who have a tough time. It is sad if one cannot even eat salad without checking. In the UK I was told salads could have tuna or anchovy which are fish. It is certainly not nice to have to worry all the time and not to be able to be at peace when eating.
     
  4. insha

    insha Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    771
    Likes Received:
    737
    Trophy Points:
    188
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    That was a nice funny writeup starting from your experiences in childhood till now:)..This is what they call History repeats itself!!!
     
    1 person likes this.
  5. Balajee

    Balajee IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    5,508
    Likes Received:
    4,486
    Trophy Points:
    338
    Gender:
    Male
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Satchi though strictly not a vegetarian (I eat fish and eggs which are still subject of debate whether they are veg or non veg) but no other meats or poultry for me. Even here I have a pragmatic approach. For me vegetarian is any food in which meet is not visible. Thus I won't launch investigations of whether my soup's stock had a veg base or meat base.While on a trip abroad once I innocently bought a cheeseburger from McDonalds in Hamburg. I loved it only to be told later that it was actually a beefburger with cheese. That did not diminish my love for it or cause nausea making me wash my mouth. But henceforth I stayed away from cheeseburgers. Somehow my cultural conditioning prevented me from eating them knowing that they contained beef.
     
    2 people like this.
  6. Mindian

    Mindian IL Hall of Fame

    Messages:
    6,330
    Likes Received:
    3,346
    Trophy Points:
    355
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    hey sats,

    your bar anecdote reminded me of my first wide eyed entrance into one when we first came to Blr . Blr is famous for its pubs and apparently many of them are visited by families (btw what is the difference between a pub and a bar??) Of course I had grown up thinking that only drunkards visited these places LOL.
    It was K who took me to one saying that it was unbelievable I had not seen one after having grown up in Mumbai.

    and re non veg the same thing happened to me too in an Indian restaurant in London. I was enjoying these yummy panneer pakodas which were in fact chicken pakodas . :hide: only after having gobbled quite a few did someone point it out to me and since I was in rather formal company I couldn't even express my agony, only grin sheepishly.
    But I must have been really hungry that day for that in no way spoilt my appetite LOL.Of course I double checked every other dish that I had the rest of the meal was in fact vegetarian.
     
    2 people like this.
  7. Riyakathir

    Riyakathir Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    2,353
    Likes Received:
    1,953
    Trophy Points:
    290
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Ha Ha Ha... I had realy a hearty laugh when you took your chicken salad.. Now satchi dear.. i do suspect on you.. You are calling yourself as a green person and you are not.... :) I suspect that you are taking al the chances to chew the red ones... :p :p caught you baby.... that too RED handed..... :p

    comon..... already once gone or always going doesn bother.... Take other Reds also in coming days... and ofcourse.. i will hear you baby.. you did in misunderstanding...

    May be you got color blindness also :D check it once know
     
    1 person likes this.
  8. ashimasd

    ashimasd Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    218
    Likes Received:
    150
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    A great snippet satchi.:thumbsup Had lots to laugh because this post reminded me of my room-mate. She is also a pakka veg and once when she was small she was served omlette by her aunt and she ate it without realising its egg!!! :rotfl She is in love with a guy who just adores non-veg and pretty much tensed about cleaning fish and chicken in the future.:rotfl Thank you for this post. I needed a laugh badly today.

    Love,
    Ashima.
     
    1 person likes this.
  9. arch1209

    arch1209 Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,942
    Likes Received:
    4,750
    Trophy Points:
    283
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Satchi what a humorous write up. I could literally imagine you holding your nose outside a restaurant cum bar and saying "Deva, Deva!" I gave up red meat a few years ago, not because of religious or cultural beliefs, but because I did not like the way it tastes. I can try almost anything once, but I do sometimes feel bad for my vegetarian friends when we go out and there are limited options for them. But I was surprised, when at a function in my school they had mostly very interesting turkish and greek vegetarian dishes and just one chicken dish. I think gradually a lot of western cultures and institutions are opening up to having an interesting menu (not your usual salad) for vegetarians and vegans.
     
    1 person likes this.
  10. getstrngth

    getstrngth Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    737
    Likes Received:
    681
    Trophy Points:
    188
    Gender:
    Female
    Re: Eat, Drink and Grow

    Hi Satchi,

    This reminds me of a similar experience. I'm a vegetarian too. I got pasta sauce which had labelled fine tomatoes minced with beef. I didn't notice the part "beef". I made pasta enjoyed it and kept the rest of the sauce in the fridge. My parents came to stay with me. My mom was rearranging the fridge and noticed it. She was asking me how did the pasta taste. I was replying that it was nice and would make once for her. Then she pointed out that it was beef and how I didn't realize it...:crazy:eek:mg:
     
    1 person likes this.

Share This Page