By itself, it wouldn’t make for a post, given my verbose nature of posting, and clumping a few of them together seemed to make more sense.
This series of posts comprises of things I thought of while enroute to Hyderabad and back within a span of two days. Uncharacteristically of me, I hadn’t carried a notepad to write things down, so I had to rely on the funda of associating ideas to get all of this in.
Ever since my stint of eating out as a result of choice rather than compulsion came about, I’ve always tried to search for the best places to eat at, keeping cost-efficiency in mind. I don’t think I’d ever be a fine-dining-every-night sort of guy, regardless of whether I could afford it or not.
In my various attempts at hunting for places where I can get cheap, but hygenic and tasty food, the canteens in colleges have no competition.
In early 2005, I had visited the IISc campus, and eaten a substantial quantity of food, at decent rates. Similarly, our engineering college had a small eatery named Cuckoo’s situated close to it, where no item on the menu was priced more than INR 20, and the tea that our man made was to die for.
In a fit of absolute hunger, the kind that makes one’s stomach seem like it is a vacuum, as I was walking through the Hyderabad University campus, I saw this small place named the ‘Eating House’, and for ten bucks, I had some incredibly tasty bajji, vadas, and a cup of tea.
My cup of joy sure runneth over.
Speaking of bajjis, I noticed in four different places where I snacked at Hyderabad, that they sold this particular type of snack named the ‘Mysore Bajji’. Now why it was called what it was, I don’t know, for I have never come across a ‘Mysore Bajji’ elsewhere. I’ve eaten ‘Mysore Pak’, ‘Mangalore Bajji’, ‘Maddur Vada’ and all that, but this was certainly novel.
Speaking of eating, we’ve also gotta cover the other end of the spectrum.
I hate malls with a vengeance, in general. I dislike their over-priced pretentiousness and their fraudly hedonistic ambience, and the only things I like about them are the fact that they sometimes contain bookstores and movie halls. Both of which, I am a big fain of.
Now, after yesterday and this morning, I have another reason to like malls. They have places where you can take a proper crap.
The worst place to be caught at when you need to go shit is on a train, as I found out yesterday. Unless it is a Shatabdi or a Rajdhani train, and nobody else has used the loo before you.
Thankfully, the feeling wasn’t that strong, and despite the fact that the train was late on the way to Bangalore, I was able to get home and do the needful.
I’ve been caught in situations where I’ve had to crap at the Forum Mall on two occasions, and it wasn’t too bad. Another point in favour of the malls, I’d say.
Someone had correctly remarked to me a long time ago that the best feeling that you get in the world is when you need to crap urgently and you get to relieve yourself.
Comments about nothing – 18/03/2009
1. Even I have eaten at Cuckoo’s you know.
2. South Indian places in Bombay have this novelty called “Mysore Masala Dosa”. I believe I haven’t come across this Mysore dosa in Mysore, or for that matter, anywhere outside Bombay. I think it is the French kiss- English kiss paradigm.
@Atulya: Mysore Masala Dosa is indeed a Mysore speciality – Dose with some red paste on the inside, and you can order it at most South Indian Restaurants like Sarvana Bhawan.
I have eaten the Madur Vada which is a crispy flattened vada at a bus station somewhere between Bangalore and Mysore. Is that typical Mysore fare too?
That red paste inside the dosas- isn’t it called gunpowder or something like that?
Maddur Vada is standard fare available uniquely (t the outset at least) at Maddur. Now you can get it in the US as well, but that are a different story altogether.
The red paste in Masala dosas is not gunpowder. That is the Chutney pudi that Gult people use in their food and stuff.
Long years ago, when I actually needed to travel by train, I used to pop a capsule of Loperamide (medicine for upset tummy) to ensure that I would not feel the need to crap on the train.
(Do not eat raw papaya salad before train journey, btw.
Loperamide it is, I shall not forget it. Crapping in loos used by many others is not the done deal, I’d prefer going for it out in the open vis-a-vis the other options available, in desperate times!