`Pandhikku Mundhu` , Padaikku Pindhu`- roughly translated, this Tamil saying means` First at a Feast and the Last for a fight`. I am one of those who has been following the first part of the saying religiously whenever I attend a marriage or any other social gathering where a feast is being served. When the Muhurtham rituals are in progress I will discretely visit the dining area and find out the time when the catering team would start serving the meals to the guests. At the appointed time I will position myself strategically so that when the door to the dining area opens I can occupy the corner seat closer to the service station, in the first row of the Hall. The idea being that when they start the service I would be the first to be served. Of course there are occasions when I would find that a few others have beaten me in the race for the corner seat. Unfortunately, on many occasions the service would start from the corner seat in the opposite row with the result I would be the last to be served in that section of the `pandhi`. Imagine my utter disappointment, impatiently waiting to be served the dishes.
I know of
some senior relatives who would not proceed to the dining area unless the hosts
personally invite them to do so. Some of them would even leave the marriage
hall in a huff without partaking the meals, if the formality is not adhered to
by the hosts. I have no such complexes. The reason why I try to occupy the
first Pandhi is because I do not like to wait in a queue before entering the
dining hall. If there is no one to control
the queue you will find the impatient guests getting in and waiting behind the
chairs while people are still having their meals, putting enormous pressure on
those guests to finish their meals early. There would be someone who is not in a hurry
to finish his or her meal, unconcerned that he or she is holding up the
cleaning team from clearing the table so that a new Pandhi can be started. The moment
seats are vacated the waiting guests,
irrespective of their social status,
will occupy the same, not even waiting for the cleaning team to clear
the table. Who cares? Their seats are secure.
It is a
different experience at the buffet meals offered at the marriage receptions
held in the evenings. If you don`t enter the dining area early you will have to
stand in long queues at the counters. Some impatient guests can be seen
jumping the queues much to the chagrin of the other guests. I am one of them. Since
I have become very choosy about what I eat to look after my health, I first do
a survey of the dishes on offer and decide on the couple of items I am going to
eat. Then I discreetly reach for them,
breaking the queue with the permission of the people already in the queue who don`t
mind accommodating an old man in a
hurry!
Invariably
in most of the weddings, representatives
of the hosts go around the dining hall
requesting the guests to eat well. In
one of the weddings I was shocked to see a gentleman going around the Pandhi
and telling guests to `Eat shamelessly`.
Later I realised that he was persuading guests to `Eat well without feeling shy`. In trying to show off his limited English
vocabulary he had literally translated the Tamil equivalent into English!
This article appeared
in the Adyar Times issue dt. 3-9th June,2018, under my column
Rajan`s random reflections
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