*CUTLERY BLUES* http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=CAP&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI
Many A Slip C V Sukumaran Several communities – Parsis, Malayalis and more – share the practice of eating on banana leaves at feasts. While Parsis use cutlery, Malayalis partake of their food with bare fingers. Cutlery is ill-suited to leaves because you run the risk of tearing them. Sambhar and other gravies stream through the clefts and you find yourself in a cleft stick. Some people are averse to the use of cutlery. Into a chic, snobbish, and swanky south Indian restaurant in an expensive address in Mumbai, which only the well-heeled frequented, a country cousin strayed and ordered a plate of idli and vada. He discovered, to his chagrin, that all eaters, without exception, used cutlery. He was uncomfortable with the eating implements and fumbled clumsily with them at the plate like a drunkard would with a key at the lock. The food-laden fork, instead of finding its way straight into his mouth, poked his face and hurt him whenever he attempted to use it. He seemed to have a mental block about the forks and spoons. The knife smacked of violence and spoon suggested spoon-feeding, which repulsed him. But if it came to the pinch, he tried to rise to the occasion. Though he hadn’t heard of the time-honoured adage, when in Rome do as Romans do, he proceeded to practise it unwittingly. Armed with a fork and a spoon he steeled himself for action when the food arrived. The soft idli yielded to the cutlery effortlessly. But its cousin, the vada, was unusually hard and unyielding. So, he had to press it hard until it broke. The breakaway peace, defying gravity, bounced like a golf ball and landed in the plate of a young lady, four tables from him. Fortunately, the lass was too engrossed in a tête-à-tête with her companion to notice the new arrival in her plate. But that didn’t spell the end of his troubles. As it sailed from his plate to hers in an arch, the vada piece wreaked havoc. Soaked as it was in sambhar, it rained the gravy on a couple of diners as it progressed in its trajectory, gifting their clothes with numerous spots of dark brown hue. A sidelong glance at them assured him that they were yet to identify the source from where the offending piece sprang. But the prospect of being confronted by a few indignant diners was daunting. So, he showed a clean pair of heels.
