En soga kadhai...

Swamped with work for the last couple of weeks, I was unable to visit other blogs at all, let alone write a new post... I honestly didn't (and don't) mind the work, even though it was killing at times. But the worst part was I had to miss the afternoon training sessions at another office. Cha, if you thought I was worried about missing the training, you can't be more mistaken. The whole point is they serve the most toothsome food there and we had all been looking forward to letting ourselves loose. Every single day, for the past three days, I have been setting out to TIDEL under the hope that I'll make it for the training at least that afternoon. But as fate would have it, I have been unable to make it to the training. Which meant - lunch at Foodcourt. *sigh* (I had, anyway, wanted to write a post on the atrocity that we TIDEL-ites have had to endure for a long time, and this seems to be an appropriate time.) I don't know how early the tragedy struck, but I have been subjected to the RKHS disaster ever since I set foot in TIDEL. (For those who are fortunate enough to have never eaten in TIDEL's foodcourt, RKHS is the name of the caterers here.) Calvin here does a pretty good job of expressing our reactions to the 'food' served here. Well well, I am not going to try to use words of any language to explain about the Foodcourt food. No words would suffice, even bad words of every language wouldn't do justice - the garbage here has to be chewed to be believed. I shall try to restrict my post to things that Prabhakar has not written about but it's a tough call, really. Once you begin thinking about Foodcourt, well, ketta varthai aruvi madhiri kottudhu.... ana adha ezhudhanum nu nenacha, namma blog-oda decency, reputation lam enna agum-ngra thought enna thaduthududhu. *sigh* One of my friends, Muthu, is very well known in our circles for his ability to eat anything that can be slightly classified as edible. The most tolerant, uncomplaining guy (wrt food, that is) with the largest appetite I have ever seen. And with his help, we generally make sure that no food is leftover at lunch (I'm referring to the lunch we take from home!). Ipdi patta Muthu-ve oru naal RKHS la senja so-called-puliyodharai-ya saaptu thuppitan, the rage in his eyes unmistakable. Actually, romba exaggerate panren. He's not the only one to be enraged by the 'food'. You can see lots of equally furious faces around foodcourt and I guess Muthu was just one of them. It's a marvel, actually. Beats me how anyone can make stuff that's absolutely uncooked, that has no uppu, sappu, kaaram, karmam... nothing! I mean, you can understand if the stuff is too salty or maybe, too liquidy. But a veg pulao with no taste? Even plain boiled rice has some taste by itself.. To extract out even that minimal, God-given natural taste must surely be the work of an expert*... Hmmm... I guess you would understand better when I say that even I can cook better than those foodcourt guys. Idhula funniest thing is that they come up with surveys occasionally. (Ye, they also come up with food festivals appopo... the entire place would be decorated and would have a festive look with the setting to suit the 'theme'... nicely done rangoli right before foodcourt... and the guys who serve would be dressed in weird attires, apparently adhering to the 'theme'... and after all this vethu scene, they'd dole out the same crap. Or crap that's differently named, but of exactly the same taste and quality, both of which are non-existent, as you must have understood by now. Prabhakar has dealt with some upcoming food festivals in his post.) Ye, coming back to our surveys - on food quality. Yes, yes, TIDEL-ites, I know it's hilarious, adhukaaga ipdi sirika koodadhu. Konjam moochu vittukonga. 'Food? What? Where? Quality-a..? Apdina?' nu adukadukka neenga kekkaradhum puriyudhu. Indha doubt TIDEL la work panni, Foodcourt la sapdara ovvoru jeevanukum varradhu dhan. Still, the RKHS guys go about with their innovative ways of conducting surveys. One fine day, foodcourt poi patha, munnadi oru moonu kutti jar irukum. Pakkathula moonu different colours paper la smileys - :) in green to indicate 'satisfied'; :| in yellow to indicate 'okay' ; and :( in red to indicate 'poor'. The first thing that pops up to every mind is 'Where's terrible? pathetic? disgusting? revolting? etc...?' (Once my friend wanted an option 'puke-inducing'. Which is a very valid request, I feel.) Anyways, to continue with our tragic story, we'd pick up one of the red smileys and drop it in the jar designated for it. 'Dropping it' isn't as an easy task as I make it sound, what with the jar already overflowing. Irundhalum, kashta pattu, epdiyo, andha paper-a ulla pottuduvom. And then, we'll go ahead to pay for and consume the waste products, provided by the one-and-only foodcourt. On returning from lunch, however, a casual glance at the jars would reveal a different picture. After running out of red smileys, enraged TIDEL-ites would have gone ahead to dump all the green and yellow smileys in the jar meant for the red ones. The green and yellow jars would be absolutely empty. Even as we watch this poignant scene, a few more TIDEL-ites would walk over, quickly glance at the 'survey', become enraged at the fact that there are no more smileys for them to express their opinion, and immediately begin contemplating about their next course of action. With a loud sigh of understanding, we would walk away, leaving the anguished souls to fend for themselves. * - Actually, that's not entirely a true statement. Deeps did comment that the white-n-light-brownish rice they served yesterday had kaaram. PS : 5000 hits cross panniyachu nethu!!!