Saturday 9 January, 2010

When Eating became a Pain

In Air Force, there is a tradition whereby the married guys invite the bachelors to home and treat them with tasty home cooked food. Weekends are generally earmarked for this purpose when everyone is free from work. Usually 2 to 3 young guys are invited at once and treated to a sumptous fare, whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner. This is done turnwise by most of the senior colleagues who are already married.

For my shy nature i avoided most of the invitations with some or the other excuse. One person kept inviting me week after week, because he liked me much. I was never comfortable with the idea of visiting someone's place just for the purpose of eating. Though the visit helped in socially being connected, filling one's stomach was the crux of the whole exercise. I tried many excuses to avoid this eating-visit, but this particular person kept inviting me the next week and so on. Atlast i had to agree to visit his home for a breakfast session.

My host was a tamilian named "Satta Nathan" which roughly translated to "King of Rules", and that could be the reason he wanted to do complete justice to his role as a Host. I used to eat 3 to 4 Idlis for breakfast. When i finished eating 4 idlis, i said "Iam done Sir". He was not the one to listen. His wife caught his gesture quite ably and dropped 2 more idlis into my plate. I gobbled up this extra seving with slight difficulty, so that my host doesnt feel unhappy. No sooner i finished the extra serving, another 2 were served. I was looking pathetic when i saw it, but my host was smiling and pleading me to finish those 2 idlis too. With great difficulty i finished those two.

By now i had gobbled up a total of 8 idlis. Mr. Satta Nathan was not a host who could be easily satisfied, though my stomach had started crying and pleading to me to put an end to this episode. With all the efforts that i took to convince him that day, he was not one to allow me to end my breakfast. He kept asking me if i didnt like his idlis. I answered they were good, and right away he would say me to eat another couple of them. I kept smiling to him and his wife, while quitely swallowing all the pain i was experienced, along with the idlis. That day he allowed me to get up only after i finished eating 13 idlis.

After that day, i kept turning down politely all the invitations for many years from all my colleagues. These days i do visit people's house but i make a request that i shall serve myself. This technique has worked well for me. I never thought Hosts could be so cruel to a guest. Till this day Mr. Satta Nathan has not realised the agony i went through, while at his home.

3 comments:

Prem said...

Will Satta Nathan read this post?

Anonymous said...

it happens......it happens when we are not strong enough to say "no"without thinking what others would feel.....

Unknown said...

Good comment Prem...