Thursday, May 22, 2008

When Time Came to a standstill...

It was one of those bright sunny mornings - the ones that normally turn up after a Royal Challengers Bangalore victory, a rarity in itself. The day held no indication of the sequence of events that were to occur later in the day.

A hungry bunch of software proffessionals (with one ex-pro) set out to fulfil the signals sent by the stomach and their taste buds on this glorious morning. The trio waded through the exponentially increasing bangalore traffic, jumped traffic signals and cursed fellow motorists on the way to, what one can describe as, a foodie's heaven.

A 20 minute wait in the queue to enter Pattapatti Sidappa's house boosted the trio's appetite with one of them being a regular, one a future customer for life and the third one a newbie. While the omni-present "Kumaranna" served one "tuppa-khali" after another, the hungry lads munched on.

2 idlis, 2 tuppa khalis and one half-rice later, the unthinkable and un-imaginable happened.

The arrival of the half masala-dosas for the trio brought salivating, eye-popping stares from the fellow customers. While the regular and the would-be-customer-for-life gleefully offered their plates to devour the much awaited half-masala, the newbie placed his hand half an inch above his plate signalling his denial for the half-masala. (half-masala at Siddappa: The third greatest invention of all time, with the first being "Pappu" and the second being "i-Pod").

Time came to a standstill, the earth stopped rotating on it's axis, bandes started thinking, software engineers started working and several other impossible things happened all at once. This gesture brought about stares so vicious, the stares that could've burnt houses from the fellow customers. Some of them had expressions on their faces which displayed a host of emotions, from anger to surprise, all at the same time. Kumaranna himself was the most surprised of the lot and muttered an unmistakable "D'oh". Till date, no one had ever, ever, refused a half-masala at Sidappa!!! The only happy person was the lady sitting next to the newbie, who literally pounced on the dosa before the newbie could change his mind.

The newbie tried to make amends by apologizing and devouring another half-masala (which arrived 20 mins later) but the damage had been done. Mankind would never be the same again.

Interesting story, wasn't it? It most definitely wasn't a fictitious one - a story based on three lives which would never remain the same thereafter. The regular - Karthik MV, the future-customer-for-life : Myself and the newbie (and the anti-hero) of this story - Sarang.

People say life goes on, but this act will have significant impact on the lives of these three. For Karthik, he will never be treated again with the same respect at Sidappa; Sarang: Shrinks have already started analysing the various causes that might have led him to do the un-thinkable and for me: I'm still pissed-off that the half-masala went to the lady on the other side of Sarang and not to me.