The Table Manners

The other day I was watching the movie `The Great Indian Kitchen` in Malayalam on OTT. The movie beautifully captures the travails of a typical Indian Housewife in a  joint family totally deprived of her independence and treated like a slave. This article is not a review of the movie but to share with you my experiences with Table manners ( at the dining table) that the movie deals with. The heroine is seen annoyed with the mess that her husband and father in law make around  their dinner plates while eating their meals every day.

I am also known for the mess I make around my plate when eating my meals at home. I also break  other table manners expected of an educated person. Like the habit of lifting the entire stainless steel plate with rims, filled with some rice and  rasam and consuming the same with relish. Always  accompanied by the sipping sound while I consume the  liquid in instalments. My son who sometimes accompanies me during lunch time looks at me with disdain when I indulge in this despicable to him but pleasurable  activity for me.  I think I picked up this habit from my father. He used to perform the act not only while consuming rasam rice but also while having the buttermilk rice ( More sadam)

Because of this habit I indulge in at home I prefer  to eat my meals alone, like my father used to. Like my father I also believe in having my meals at the appointed time and not wait for others to join. I also like to have my meals seated at the table and helping myself with dishes kept on the table. Unlike what many youngsters do these days. They help themselves with the items required on a   plate and eat their meals while watching their favourite TV programmes or reading a book.

My mother always used to stress the importance of respecting the `Dhanya Laxmi` also known as `Anna laxmi`,  the goddess who gives us our food - while eating our meals. She would insist that the children concentrate on the food they eat and respect the Anna Laxmi.  Otherwise, according to her, they might invite the wrath of the goddess. Modern day kids exposed to the world of internet with information on their finger tips are bound to reject such superstitions.

Like the husband in the movie I also follow table manners when I am eating in restaurants or at public functions. I learnt about  table manners the hard way.  It happened in the first  year of my job at Clarion McCann in 1966.  At an office dinner hosted by my boss lady for the staff at her luxurious flat in the upscale Malabar Hills in Bombay.

Though I was careful with my drink, when the dinner was announced I could not resist the spread of food on the dining table. While I was busy tucking away the food on my plate, enjoying every morsel, I found somebody pushing me to a corner. It was my boss lady  who quietly admonished me  for embarrassing her in front of her guests. I did not know what wrong I had done.  Later, I learnt that my fault was that I ate with my hands and was busy licking the food sticking out of  my fingers as I would do at home. I had not used the forks or spoons available on the table.  I felt humiliated. I quickly sneaked out of the house and all the way to my home in Matunga I was sure that I would be sacked the next morning and my dream career in advertising would come to an abrupt end. Fortunately nothing of the sort happened except that I was never invited to any official dinner for the next one year! By which time thanks to a  very close friend  in the office  I had  not only learnt table manners but also other basic etiquettes of life.

 

I have come a long way since that unforgettable incident,  attending hundreds of formal and informal dinners not only in India but also abroad participating in  seminars and conferences over the years. But even today I am not comfortable attending the  three  or four course formal dinners in five star facilities where the liveried bearers change the plates every time you finish one course.

 

I realize that I have never been able to totally get rid of the mindset of a boy from a  middle class family from the chawls of Bombay.