Eating in Maharaja-land for Dummies..

Its been a while, but yours truly was busy recharging himself on a trip to Rajasthan, the land of the desert sands, where kings once fought over acres of territory that no one could possibly use, and where water is more precious than wine (or anything else for that matter). Its a place where man is still a slave to nature, dependent on her for his very survival and growth. The phrase "between a rock and a hard place", would well define the state of the people who live here. And yet, not only do they survive, they thrive in this land of adversity and seeming mercilessness in such a colourful and symbiotic fashion, it can boggle the mind of an outsider (in this case myself).

But then again, I'm not going to wax eloquently on the place. Enough has been done by the Lonely Planets and Rough Guides, which you see held by tourists, gawking helplessly at the utter chaos that is the Indian Republic, believing in their heart of hearts that the tattered book in their hands is a Bible that shall pull them through. No, you have now qualified for a course of mine, Gastronomic Etiquette-101 that must be practised in Rajasthan.

I realised the difference the moment I asked the driver, who was showing my family and I around Udaipur, where we could stop for lunch. This was on a particularly hot summer's day, with temperatures around the 44 degree mark, and we'd been roaming around the city all morning. So I was ready to accept anything that had a semblance of a roof, and gave free drinking (read drink-able) water (which is a luxury you get, it doesn't work that way in most other countries). He pointed our way to a place that said in huge, bold, red letters, Nataraja DINING HALL.

We entered slowly, not knowing what to expect, after all we'd heard of all sorts of eat outs-Restrent, Vag Hotel(Yes, you read right), Tiffen Palace, Snake Bar (Exotic snacks?), but not this. It seemed like we'd entered the motherload of all the chaos in the world, with people screaming, yelling, plates being thrown, food being wolfed down, kids running around with the sole aim of tripping you over, with their mothers shrieking behind them at glass-cracking dB levels, in short the great Indian Circus. The only things placed on our table were 4 plates with a million small cups in it. We'd barely sat down when the ballet had begun.

In perfect synchronism, about 20 different men brought double the quantities of food and plonked them on the plates, the cups and basically wherever they could find room. Now don't get me wrong, I've had my share of sadhyas, and feasts on festivals, but this was something different. These are random people you don't know, who's only job description would be "to keep you eating and never stop". In seconds you'd find food you'd just finished magically filled, only to realise that you couldn't possible eat it.

An important lesson is never, ever say no, when someone offers a dish. I think their internal performance evaluation system is judged on the quantity of items they've given out, the more you bring back, the more it means that people don't like you and what your carrying, and the more black stars on your report card. Rather crude, but it works, because you'll find servers imploring you to take their dishes, even pulling down their companions just to make you eat more. And refusing is insulting. You might as well just degrade his manhood in public.

Its great that there're still some places like this-in a world with size-zero obsession problems and where women (and men) shrink themselves to the extent of just becoming hangers for clothes, and where the star rating of a restaurant is inversely proportional to the amount of food you actually get to eat. That you can still go and eat, and savour food, and then have some more again without a care in the world.

Bon Appetit!