Sunday, January 09, 2005

Articles sent to dakshinayanam

I finally sent in the articles they asked to dakshinayanam. It was in a cd named not phink!! Need to safestory my cds. the esclamation marks were in the name of the cd. Some of my data backup cds are disintegrating. NEver buy those stupid cheap cds. Note to myself. Ok. So anyway, sent in these articles that the editor had asked for:

I was wondering when the close tag in the p tag in HTML would ever be useful. Right now, when you wanna align something to the right, you use the close p tag! That's soo cool! it just hit me. oh well...

They are a bit old and I am ashamed of them now... as always. I feel so stupid writing them now..
The waiter

The waiter is the seven hundred and thirty-fourth most interesting thing in the universe. But since the other seven hundred and thirty three things are nowhere to be found on our home planet, we’ll consider him to be the most interesting thing known to man. He’s a superb creature to study.
Not only does his job force him to give you food that renders you capable of saying a nice and friendly ‘hi’ to the Devil, but also to do it with a smile on his face and put all the load of murk in plates and bowls and put something on top that will actually make you eat it. He must be pretty successful, judging by the large amount of indigested food that gets buried or burnt, mostly when still in the stomach of some poor bloke who ate out in a moment of weakness. But let’s leave restaurant food for another article, and concentrate on the waiter.
Our world is blessed (more like cursed) with many kinds of waiters. There’s the type on roadside ‘Chinese corners’, not the single-man stalls, but the one with the old bald fellow sitting near a desk, taking down the orders and the money, with rickety old tables and chairs strewn around and young boys in any old supposedly stylish clothes (obtained after heavy bargaining from those places near railway stations), running around serving rice or noodles or some bird that can be passed off as a chicken or water that a few old tomatoes have been washed with. That’s soup if you haven’t any experience in such matters. And forget fingers, if you notice that the ends of the sleeves of the said dirt shirts are adding their unique flavour to the soup, you are too sophisticated for the place, and you better get out of there as soon as possible because things can get pretty ugly, as all the waiter-boys are chamchas of the local wannabe goonda. Don’t even bother cancelling orders; you will be forced to eat the wrong thing anyway.
There’s the type you find in restaurants where the food is relatively cheap, that serve you somewhat tasty South Indian food. They will have khaki or brown uniforms with the hotel’s name embroidered on their pockets in red or purple, and they joke amongst themselves and chat away on all the things you would expect to find on the 1983 issue of Filmfare, and only occasionally get down to actually serving anything that is ordered, and they become touchy and fed-up about something, and even the slightest complaining about the food being too cold, or the lack of a clean food doesn’t go down too well. They will not say anything in your face, but the ‘difficult person’ on table no 4 will be added on their gossip agenda and they will colourfully describe your personality, hairstyle, food habits and character, even daring to crack jokes on you, loud enough for you to hear, in a language they think you do not understand. Cancelling an order will only make the gossip more colourful… er, vulgar.
Then there’s the place with the neon sign on top and a fishtank in the corner, and the waiters in uniform that involves a gaudy gold shirt and a red jacket on top. These guys bow a little too much. They waiters take pride in bowing every time you make an order, and repeating out the orders aloud so that you know that they got it right. They also bow while they serve you the food that you have ordered. They relish holding your food between an intricate arrangement involving a spoon and a fork and dropping it gently on your plate. Your glass gets refilled every time you take even the slightest sip of water. They bow after that too. They bow enough to make you remember the guy from Notrodame. They bow after giving you the bill. And when you leave, their bow ranges from doubling over and just a slight head nod, depending on the generosity of your tip.
Ditto for the hotels with those smart people in black suits. They are intimidating, but if you manage to show a lot of attitude and complain like hell about the food, you will get a few items free. You get to eat like a king, with all sorts of ceramics and glass tableware, but you have to pay like an emperor thanks to the exponentially expanding amount they print on the bill. They serve something simple like boiled egg in a weird cup with an egg on top and another hidden below the base. That’s all I could order with the money I had, AFTER giving some property on mortgage. Someone writes the seven figures on the bill in calligraphy. They usually also have a heart specialist nearby. You see, they can go on business together. But that’s again, another story.

-Aditya MJ




The waiter

The waiter is the seven hundred and thirty-fourth most interesting thing in the universe. But since the other seven hundred and thirty three things are nowhere to be found on our home planet, we’ll consider him to be the most interesting thing known to man. He’s a superb creature to study.
Not only does his job force him to give you food that renders you capable of saying a nice and friendly ‘hi’ to the Devil, but also to do it with a smile on his face and put all the load of murk in plates and bowls and put something on top that will actually make you eat it. He must be pretty successful, judging by the large amount of indigested food that gets buried or burnt, mostly when still in the stomach of some poor bloke who ate out in a moment of weakness. But let’s leave restaurant food for another article, and concentrate on the waiter.
Our world is blessed (more like cursed) with many kinds of waiters. There’s the type on roadside ‘Chinese corners’, not the single-man stalls, but the one with the old bald fellow sitting near a desk, taking down the orders and the money, with rickety old tables and chairs strewn around and young boys in any old supposedly stylish clothes (obtained after heavy bargaining from those places near railway stations), running around serving rice or noodles or some bird that can be passed off as a chicken or water that a few old tomatoes have been washed with. That’s soup if you haven’t any experience in such matters. And forget fingers, if you notice that the ends of the sleeves of the said dirt shirts are adding their unique flavour to the soup, you are too sophisticated for the place, and you better get out of there as soon as possible because things can get pretty ugly, as all the waiter-boys are chamchas of the local wannabe goonda. Don’t even bother cancelling orders; you will be forced to eat the wrong thing anyway.
There’s the type you find in restaurants where the food is relatively cheap, that serve you somewhat tasty South Indian food. They will have khaki or brown uniforms with the hotel’s name embroidered on their pockets in red or purple, and they joke amongst themselves and chat away on all the things you would expect to find on the 1983 issue of Filmfare, and only occasionally get down to actually serving anything that is ordered, and they become touchy and fed-up about something, and even the slightest complaining about the food being too cold, or the lack of a clean food doesn’t go down too well. They will not say anything in your face, but the ‘difficult person’ on table no 4 will be added on their gossip agenda and they will colourfully describe your personality, hairstyle, food habits and character, even daring to crack jokes on you, loud enough for you to hear, in a language they think you do not understand. Cancelling an order will only make the gossip more colourful… er, vulgar.
Then there’s the place with the neon sign on top and a fishtank in the corner, and the waiters in uniform that involves a gaudy gold shirt and a red jacket on top. These guys bow a little too much. They waiters take pride in bowing every time you make an order, and repeating out the orders aloud so that you know that they got it right. They also bow while they serve you the food that you have ordered. They relish holding your food between an intricate arrangement involving a spoon and a fork and dropping it gently on your plate. Your glass gets refilled every time you take even the slightest sip of water. They bow after that too. They bow enough to make you remember the guy from Notrodame. They bow after giving you the bill. And when you leave, their bow ranges from doubling over and just a slight head nod, depending on the generosity of your tip.
Ditto for the hotels with those smart people in black suits. They are intimidating, but if you manage to show a lot of attitude and complain like hell about the food, you will get a few items free. You get to eat like a king, with all sorts of ceramics and glass tableware, but you have to pay like an emperor thanks to the exponentially expanding amount they print on the bill. They serve something simple like boiled egg in a weird cup with an egg on top and another hidden below the base. That’s all I could order with the money I had, AFTER giving some property on mortgage. Someone writes the seven figures on the bill in calligraphy. They usually also have a heart specialist nearby. You see, they can go on business together. But that’s again, another story.

-Aditya MJ


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