Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.
Me saying that is also probably copied from somewhere. So now it is a copy of a person noticing that everything is a copy. Great.
Most Udupi-style hotels seem like they were duplicated when nobody was looking. Steel tables. Steel chairs. One coffee counter. One juice counter. The same tumblers, the same plates and almost the same people standing around near the kitchen as if something important is about to happen.
Even the names begin to mix together after some time. Udupi Upachara. Sri Krishna. Aramane. Something Bhavan. You know the place.
The main thing that has changed is that idli sambar is suddenly ₹90.
I very clearly remember it being ₹35. You can call this inflation. I call it not fair. I don’t know what percentage increase that is, and I refuse to calculate it while hungry.
I go to this particular hotel quite often, which makes the next part worse.
I have a seating problem.
Whenever I go somewhere with friends or family, I mostly decide where we sit. If somebody selects what I consider to be the wrong table, I can become a bit of an ass and make everyone move.
There is a system.
If I am alone, I want a table with two chairs. If five people have come, there should be a proper place for five people. Pulling one unrelated chair from another table bothers me more than it should.
Corner seats are best. Window seats are also good. A seat close to a railing is acceptable.
The middle is just wrong.
The first time I entered that night, the hotel was full. There was one table somewhere near the front, and another in the middle of everything.
No way I was taking that place, bro.
So I left.
I got back on my bike, drove around in circles for around fifteen or twenty minutes, listened to some music and returned.
I have done worse before. I have gone home from crowded restaurants and told my family the place was closed or that the food was over.
It wasn’t closed.
I just couldn’t enter.
When I came back this time, a place near the railing was becoming available. I ordered two kulchas and paneer butter masala. Another man had ordered roti curry.
Unfortunately, my paneer butter masala took longer.
By the time my food arrived, the man with the roti had taken the good place. The only option left was a table somewhere in the middle.
I had two options: sit awkwardly in the middle or ask them to pack up the food they had just put on the plate.
I pushed myself to choose the uncomfortable seat so I could document this particular observation.
At exactly 8:28 p.m., I started a timer. I took my earphones out and left them on the table. Then I placed my phone face down on my right-hand side.
Since getting my first phone and earphones, I don’t think I have eaten alone outside without something playing. It could be music, or it could be the seventieth time I am watching Friends, Modern Family or The Office.
Not even watching, actually. Mostly listening while putting food into my face.
The paneer butter masala was on one side. The kulchas were in front of me. There were cucumbers, onions and one piece of lime.
I still don’t know where the lime is supposed to go.
Do I squeeze it over the paneer? Over the kulcha? Eat it separately? I have attempted different things, and sometimes the lime taste ruins everything. So I left it alone.
They had also given me far too much paneer butter masala for two kulchas. I took a generous amount, put it on my plate and began eating.
I had to look up.
There was a large family behind me. They had joined around three tables together and had clearly come from some function. There was a lot of laughing. From what little I heard, I think they were teasing a guy about getting married.
On the other side was the juice counter.
The juice-counter man was chilling.
I have visited this hotel several times, and I very rarely see him make juice. I’m not saying he has never made juice. I am only saying I have no personal evidence of it.
I was facing the kitchen. There was an older couple eating towards the left. Another table had two or three children. At several other tables, people were either talking or looking at their phones.
The ratio was probably fifty-fifty. This is not scientific research.
The people who were talking were mostly talking about the food. Apparently, when human beings eat food, one of our favourite subjects is more food.
There were plates landing on tables, spoons hitting steel, chairs moving and people calling out orders. I had heard all these sounds before, obviously. But this was probably the first time I had actually listened to them and was able to put faces to the voices.
I completed roughly one kulcha.
Then the nightmare arrived.
A stranger sat directly opposite me.
He had some reddish (maybe orange—I have to pull up an old textbook to see if I’m colourblind) Chinese rice item. Schezwan fried rice, probably. He also had one of those half-litre water bottles.
He began talking on the phone. From his tone, I think he was refusing or declining something. Then he noticed that some sauce was missing and went back to get it.
He had done absolutely nothing wrong. This is important to mention.
His only crime was sitting in a chair that was available.
I was uncomfortable anyway.
Normally, the phone solves this problem. I look down, start an episode and create a small private room around myself. The other person disappears. I also disappear.
But with the phone face down, I had to be there. He could see me, and I could see him.
I still don’t know whether crowds make me feel invisible or make me feel too visible. Somehow, I think it might be both.
This is not a diagnosis.
I stayed for 43 minutes. Then I had the remaining paneer butter masala parcelled, took my bike and left.
Nothing extraordinary happened. Nobody came over and changed my life. I did not suddenly become somebody who enjoys sitting in the middle of crowded restaurants.
But I remembered the room.
I remembered the laughing family, the older couple, the red rice, the missing sauce and the juice-counter man. I have visited this place many times before, but usually I remember only what I ate and which episode was playing.
I also developed a theory that the restaurant is overstaffed.
The juice counter may be part of some kind of money-laundering operation. I currently have no evidence. More observation is required.
Putting my phone down did not reveal the secret beauty of mankind. It was still just steel tables, too much paneer butter masala and one man looking for sauce.
But for 43 minutes, the restaurant stopped being background.
STILL OBSERVING, SAM.