Desicritics Category: Culture: Consumerism

Restaurant Review: Via Milano, Bangalore

Deepti Lamba — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:18:54 EDT

What makes a restaurant a success? Food alone does not cut it but the ambiance and service are of equal relevance. While the food in Via Milano, a Bangalore-based Italian restaurant run by Italian expats was reasonably good, it had an impersonal feel to it and the service sucked.

The Salmon was subtle and tasty. The spaghetti and shrimp were good but there was no accompanying bread basket with the main course. We had to remind the waiter to serve it and by then we were already midway through our meal.

The waiters were completely spaced out. We had to be on the lookout to catch their eye to get even basic needs met. What bugged me was the socialist mentality of waiters hovering over the 'gora' tables while 'naturally' ignoring the desis. One table had three waiters grouped around it. How hard was the decision making?

Once we had finished dinner, our plates were taken in a rather haphazard manner; a few taken by one waiter and another returning to look under napkins in case the side plates were left behind. I was weirded out.

Our coffee orders were mixed up and far from feeling at home at their pristine white 50s-style lounge, I wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Which by the way took another fifteen minutes since they forgot to return our bill till we reminded them that we had been waiting for a long time for the card and check.

Instead of Via Milano, I recommend Fiorano in Koramangala where the service is far better. Another place is Magnolia which despite being crowded on weekends offers impeccable service and awesome Thai food.

Bomb Blasts, Social Responsibility, and Baazigars

tunnelvision — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 09:03:53 EDT

On the 13th May, 2008 at 7.30 PM in Jaipur, the first bomb planted by terrorists went off at 7.30 in terribly crowded streets of the Pink city and by 8.00 PM nine blasts had spilled the blood of hundreds of innocent people. About eighty people died and above two hundred injured lay crying in hospitals.

Concurrently, at 8.00 PM, in Kolkata, the IPL Cricket match between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Dare Devils began. Kolkata Knight Riders' co-owner Shahrukh Khan was present. His team won the game and he danced at the victory of his team. He had millions of reasons to dance and not even one reason to show concern for ordinary people who go crazy even to have a look at their idol. The cricket match was planned long back and couldn’t have been cancelled.

That is reasonable but consider the horror of seeing cheerleaders dancing in Kolkata as Jaipur lay bleeding. Some would say that they are paid to dance and they did their job.

Die-hard Shahrukh fans will opine that he is a very busy man and he couldn’t have known about the horrific events folding in distant Jaipur.

It appears increasingly impossible to look for such elusive sensitivities from our icons. He was perhaps so terribly focused with his maniacal concentration looking forward to a win, he lost contact with other matters. Like a latter-day Arjun, he focused all his energies on the cricket match. In today’s connected world it is unacceptable and unthinkable that he, his staff, or his resourceful associates didn’t know of the horrific bomb blasts.

It’s horrendous to know that nobody bothered to suggest toning down the victory celebrations and displaying concern for the dead and wounded as result of the terrorists' attack. At least, it was expected that he could have avoided dancing at the end of the match and had mourned the terrible event in Jaipur.

Other Baazigars of 100 plus TV channels gleefully continued to beam glamorous advertisements and laughter show promos while continuously reporting the bomb blasts.

It seems that the media is the biggest gainer of natural and unnatural calamities befalling helpless people. We must know by now that these Baazigars don’t have any sensitivity left along with zero social responsibility.

To talk about the concept of social responsibility of our icons is perhaps totally insane and useless as they have not heard and/or understood it.

The Apple iPhone 3G: How Steve Jobs Fooled Me

Sakshi Juneja — Sat, 5 Jul 2008 03:45:12 EDT

Undoubtedly the iPhone is one of the sweetest inventions in recent times. Well at least in my books. And I wouldn't be wrong in stating, countless others share the same view. Released on 29th June 2007 (in the US), in matter of weeks the world was gripped in its craze. I remember constantly eyeing eBay iPhone sellers, looking for that 'one' perfect deal. The temporary trauma that came along with my iPhone package still lingers - let's just say I still have nightmares about paperweight iPhones.

All that was then, the iPhone is now old news. What is in the news however is its rejuvenated version – the iPhone 3G.

The 3G model is yet to be released (a week from now to be precise) and I know tons of folks who can't wait to get their hands on this beauty. Yours truly included, I mean after all it does fall within my "all things sexy" category.

Besides all the new features such as the two colour options (Black/White), 16 GB option, 2 megapixels camera, 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, App store and Microsoft Exchange, the most attractive bit of all is its marketed price; $199 for 8 GB model & $299 for 16 GB model. Now when converted into Indian rupees, the amount sounds easy on the ears and the pocket.

But if you go by this report you will realize things are not always what they seem, especially good things.

The iPhone 3G will cost Rs 20,000 in India - the costliest in the world.

The iPhone 3G will be free in the UK as it's subsidised by O2, a service provider; it's 1 Euro (Rs 70) in Germany, again subsidised by T-mobile and costs US$ 199 (Rs 8,557) in the USA, thanks to AT&T. The phone costs US$ 350 (Rs 15,050) in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and the Philippines. It is not available in Dubai. [Link]

And if like me you too are thinking of purchasing this baby for a lesser price via the ever-enterprising eBay or requesting your chacha's wife's grandfather's cousin's grandson to send you US-made maal – well then, my darling, you are in for a disappointment.

US buyers will have to purchase a service contract with AT&T before leaving the store; you cannot buy it online. The phone has to be activated within 30 days or the buyer will be penalized. You cannot cancel the two-year contract with AT&T. Either a cancellation fee of 175$ (Rs 7,525) will be charged or the phone has to be returned.

And for my buddies in US of A who are jumping with joy (and mocking us poor souls back home) thinking about the dream figure; here's a news flash for ya.

(Only) if you're "upgrade eligible" (log into your AT&T account to see if you are), you'll be able to buy the new iPhone for the discounted price of $199 for the 8GB version or $299 (INR 8,584.86) for the 16GB (INR 12,898.86) model. (AT&T is somewhat vague about the eligibility criteria, although your credit history and the time remaining on your contract are factors.) You'll also have to pay an $18 "upgrade fee."

If you're not eligible for the discount, you'll have to fork over extra for an "early upgrade"-$399 for the 8GB iPhone 3G or $499 for the 16GB model. Ouch.

AT&T also says that a "no-commitment" (read: no contract) iPhone 3G will be available soon, at $599 for the 8GB version and or $699 for the 16GB handset. Pricey, but hey- no two-year contract.

Unfortunately, AT&T won't offer the new iPhone on a prepaid basis, at least not at launch. [Link]

Ha Ha Ha.

On a serious note though, personally speaking, shelling Rs. 20,000 on an officially purchased iPhone isn't much. In 2006 I had bought an unofficial Sony Ericsson W900i for 25 grand and it didn't have half the features present in the 3G iPhone. Also when you compare it to high-Nokia models currently in the market, the price of an iPhone is comparatively quite low.

So it only seems wiser to buy an official piece, the only drawback – can you wait for another 3 months?

(*Picture Source : Apple Inc)

Book Review: One Night @ The Call Center

heartcrossings — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:50:01 EDT

By when you make it to page twenty of Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ The Call Center, you see a Bollywood screenplay pretty much writing itself. Had I been more Bollywood-savvy I would have figured the entire cast - a younger Rahul Bose seems perfect for Sam, the narrator. I don’t say this is a demeaning way at all. In the right directorial hands, this is a story ripe for being Bollywood-ized.

The material is fully ready waiting merely a couple of item numbers to be shoe horned at the right spots. There is love, sex, heroes, villains, vamps, God (though God knows why) and a long suffering Indian wife who catches her husband cheating on her even as she slaves to make the perfect Badam Milk for his mother. Plot elements are borrowed from sources on cyberspace and elsewhere – probably a natural thing for something that has Bollywood stamped all over it.

Though the God element in the prologue was intriguing, I did not get the point in the end - especially in the epilogue. Other than that the story is quite readable actually – just like some Bollywood flicks are entertaining and watchable. Some of the stereotypes about the average American customer calling 800 numbers are rather lame - but then that is the nature of most stereotypes.

At any rate, Bhagat warns the reader very early not to expect a work of Naipaul or Rushdie. That is a very useful disclaimer as it turns out. Talk about excellent reader expectation management. Whether or not Bhagat is a writer, he is a salesman par excellence. Reading the Wikipedia entry confirms my first instinct : Bollywood has been quick to snap up the rights.

Movie Review: The Happening

Aaman Lamba — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:52:27 EDT

The Happening is a concept in search of a storyline. It might very well have been a Sci Fi Channel special, tucked away among Sabertooths Attack! and Mansquito on the same channel that gave us the M. Night Shyamalan con job (The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan) last time he had a movie coming out. This is tragic, because it succeeds in ways that would have been above average for a run of the mill B movie director, and yet is many notches below what we know M. Night is capable of.

All the same, the exegesis of the subprime crisis, post-9/11 revisionism, and a million ways to kill yourself combine to produce an intensely unsettling look at 21st century America. The director's reiteration of the unknowable nature of wonders is to be expected - the signs don't explain the happenings, as it were. It is this expectedness of the unexpected that is the problem with M. Night's recent films - it gives us a Brody-view of Kafka, rather than allowing us to experience the unknown for what it is. Dumbing down the material might be appropriate for the mainstream, but when popular culture is so much more challenging and complex, and so are the audiences - life imitating art, or vice versa - the creative artist must rise to the challenge and set ever greater imponderables in our path, not proffer the facile "there are forces at work beyond our understanding" thesis.

The shock value of the film plays on both usual disaster movie themes and classic American Paranoid styles. It becomes hard to distinguish between a neurological infection and fear of the stranger. Post the Green Revolution, it is not hard to imagine the plants might feel the same way, having had enough nitrogenous fertilizer for a decade.

The science teacher turned survivalist is beset by too many issues, rocky marriage notwithstanding. He doesn't get to go on a Resident Evil style rampage, the crisis peaking and tapering off. Life then inexplicably returns to normal, although the plant menace doesn't go away for good.

Neither will M. Night. Give him a year or so and he'll be back with another predictable tale of warnings ignored, dark events, and strange happenings.

The North South Divide in India: Language, Culture, Prejudice?

Adithya — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:23:24 EDT

BG's little experience in a mall in Delhi got me thinking. Prejudice shows its ugly face everywhere. One of the most often discussed topic in our country is that divide between the so called South Indians and the so called North Indians. It is such an interesting topic that all those funny comments to articles in Rediff lead there no matter what the issue was originally to start with.

The nucleus of the prejudice, quite obviously lies in the language barrier. The fact that one community cannot understand the other's language leads to baseless assumptions, ridicule and fantasies. The oldest example I could remember was Mehmood making fun of the south Indian accent, way of life in Padosan. All in good humor.

So, what's this prejudice? Having lived in both the societies and been in the receiving end of both the forms of partisanship, I believe I understand them both quite well.

The Hindi speaking community looks at South Indians as backward, narrow minded and a disconnected lot of people that at times suggests an alienating behavior in ones own country. Blame it on the language. All said and done, it is indeed a fact that Tamil Nadu at least, where I come from, has been disconnected from rest of India. But it by no means gives an excuse to cultivate such pedestrian opinions about a community that is very much Indian.

As soon as you land in a city beyond the four southern states, you are branded a "Madrasi" in your school, you are ridiculed for the way you pronounce thoda. You may argue it is childish and probably a thing for kids, but everything, like charity, begins at home. If a matured twenty something has the audacity to ask a decently dressed woman, "Why are you dressed like that, you look like someone from South India", it speaks volumes about what that woman has seen and understood of India as a whole.

The people down south look at Northies as a community that places importance on show, splendor, outlook and all other things considered trivial down under. The people from Bombay and north of it are more exposed to fashion, lavish spending, highly westernized influences in daily life and an undying urge to stand out in the society. The people down south consider themselves to be leap years ahead when it comes to the topic of gray matter and achievements in education and personal lives. They speak better English, are widespread in the fields of engineering and entrepreneurship and are well read individuals. These are some of the factors where south Indians seem to think they are one up compared to the north.

The issue comes down to a debate of priorities and perspectives. It really depends on an individual's choices and emphasis on what is important to his/her life.

It may be a thing of the past but today when people move around, live in other states and countries, together with different communities of India, they realize how wrong they were. It still pains to hear about men and women like the one BG met.

They not only need to open their minds, but also take a look at themselves. Maybe wearing Manish Malhotra and sitting inside Cafe Mocha for hours is more important to her than wearing Naidu Hall and flipping through J.K. Rowling and Thomas L. Friedman inside Landmark. The perspectives differ with individuals and not with communities. At least not anymore.

Playing On Vulnerabilities

Suresh Naig — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:32:55 EDT

He was sitting in the waiting hall, already crowded with many hopeful faces, hopeful that the person sitting inside the chamber, had a miracle cure for all their maladies. They were right in expecting a miracle, because they have seen many persons vouching for his efficacious remedy, in the TV programme repeatedly. Though many have realized, that the programme is aired in the bought out time slot, it is the deep seated desire to have a miracle, which had clouded their logical mind.

When compared to all the waiting patients, he was different, since his purpose of visit was also different. He was a journalist doing a small write up in a vernacular magazine on alternative medicine. To make the story lively, he wanted to visit the doctor, nay the “Healer” – that’s what he called himself, and that’s what evinced interest in the young journalist to visit him. The journalist looked very ordinary, like any one of the faces we encounter on the street, or the Railway Station, in his early thirties. Since he had planned his story from the perspective of a patient, he had not divulged his professional identity.

The waiting hall of the clinic, boasted several certificates from several universities both Indian and foreign, both unheard by our young journalist. He had made a mental note of all the certificates, which had all the letters of English alphabet. It appeared to him that the abbreviations of the qualifications were arrived at from random drawing of different alphabets. The young journalist appreciated the marketing brain, of the practitioner, as he called himself as the ‘Healer’ and not as ‘Doctor’. That was his primary USP. Many of the qualified doctors were humble enough to confess that, they only dress the wound and God heals. The self proclaimed physician, with his bought out degrees, had elevated himself as ‘Healer’.

The large waiting room had liberal doses of grinning photographs of the healer, invariably with several famous personalities. In addition, the waiting hall was decorated with the photographs of previous five generations of ‘healers’, secondary USP of the physician. The ‘healer’ was taking elaborately longer time with each of his prospective clients. Some people in the waiting hall were discussing about the tales they have heard about the healer, elevating him to a legend.

In the waiting hall, people of different age groups were engaged in hushed conversation. Our journalist as usual, had to strain his ears, to listen to them. Surprisingly all the waiting patients were only males and some were discussing about the remarkable abilities of the ‘healer’. One was saying that he could find out the malady of a person with just one look and his medicines are very powerful. Our journalist felt, that people say this kind of fable, more to reassuring themselves, than to convince others.

Having enjoyed different conversation, our journalist was ushered in. On entry the ‘healer’, gave a disarming smile at our young friend. The healer was looking like a clown with his bright yellow shirt, tucked inside navy blue trousers, a broad floral neck tie, with abundance of red hue, clumsily knotted, his forehead decorated with sandal paste dotted by vermillion in the centre.

Without warning, two attractive female assistants draped in white saris, helped him out of his slack shirt and trousers. Before he could react and protest, our journalist was lifted on to an examination table. One female was busy pumping the BP meter, the other after silencing him with a thermometer, started to count his pulse. After the preliminaries, it was the healer’s turn to examine him.

His touch was fond and caressing. Our journalist was dazed, but played along. The healer was nodding his head at regular intervals, while doing physical examination of the journalist. After about 20 minutes, he was merciful in allowing our journalist to wear his clothes. While making the journalist sit in front of his huge table, the healer was giving a quick practiced talk, while his hands were busy packing an assortment of powders and tablets in paper envelopes.

The female assistants were withdrawn to an ante room, as if strictly rehearsed. The healer was reassuring the journalist, ‘Don’t worry, you have come to the right place. I shall give you the right medicine, and within a month you will feel like a man.’

The journalist was confused, he said, ‘I already feel like a man’. The healer said, ‘I know what your problem is. Now that the females have gone, you can confide.’ He reduced his voice to a whisper, ‘you know many top doctors of the city come to me for medicine. My medicines are very effective, especially for your problem and I have some really effective medicine for diabetes.’ Our journalist asked, ‘Do you know what my problem is?’

The healer gave a condescending smile. ‘I know, you are looking for a “raise”, which is not happening’. Our Journalist was impressed for the first time. ‘How did you know that?’. The healer replied, ‘That’s the problem with many of the “self starters”, now the journalist was confused for a moment, but quickly recovered. He wanted to play along to extract more information, and the healer to extract more money. The healer asked him ‘What kind of medicine do you want? Gold, Silver, Super Special, or Special.’

He settled for Silver, and solicited more information on his medicine for Diabetes, so that he can bring his father for consultation. The healer said, ‘My medicine for diabetes is very effective, which is our family secret for over five generations. Had my Grandfather or father wanted, they could have sold this formula to a foreign company and made huge money. Our intention is to only serve humanity.’ He was quick to add, ‘this money we are taking from the patients, is only to collect valuable herbs from the Himalayas, which is very expensive.’

He reduced his voice to a whisper and declared, ‘You know many famous doctors in the city come to me, for blood pressure, diabetes, and I have medicine even for renal failure. If a person takes my medicine continuously for three months, they get cured of diabetes and there is no need of taking insulin at all.’

Our journalist was richer by a few juicy bytes for his article and poorer by five thousand rupees, which the healer snatched away from him for consultation and medicines. The journalist was the last patient for the day and after the patients have left, the ‘healer’, who was in his fifties, pulled a large pen like device from inside a table draw, opened the cap, calibrated the dosage and took a quick prick of ‘insulin’, his regular before dinner for the past ten years.

George Carlin, Comedian and Cynic, Passes Away

Aaman Lamba — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:39:48 EDT

George Carlin left an impression like few other comedians or media artists. One felt one was experiencing a darkly humorous perspective on life that made one all the richer, while leaving one with a sense of wanting to change things - to make the joke truly a joke and not wry commentary on the establishment. The nature of anti-establishmentarianism is to view the state of things as flawed. It goes beyond cynicism in wanting to destroy the defective system, seeing that as better than perpetuating it.

George Carlin came of age, in the media sense, as it were, in the 1960s and 1970s, the time of Johnson and Nixon. The anger and frustration of the anti-war movement easily translated to a general distrust of the overall establishment, and Carlin was able to parlay that into numerous comedy routines, though not overtly anti-society in the early years. He was a regular celebrity in the sixties, a role he later repudiated, calling it 'living a lie'.

He built his onstage persona post 1970 around a framework of misanthropy and mockery, using social criticism and language to good effect. He saw himself as 'here for the show' and designed to entertain as he mocked what he saw as the continuing degradation of American culture. He became known asthe "the comic voice of the counterculture", going on to influence two generatins of stand up comedians. He was arrested for his "Seven Dirty Words" routine in 1972 at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with obscenity. He went on to be the first host of Saturday Night Live in 1975, but went off the air, as it were, taking a five year break, although airing the first few of his HBO specials in the period.

He provided voice-overs for children's series like Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, and acted in films ranging from The Prince of Tides to Dogma, besides providing the voice for Fillmore, the psychedelic Volkswagen bus in Pixar's Cars.

He had a history of heart problems, and drug and alcohol abuse, for which he entered drug rehabilitation. He died of heart failure at the age of 71 in Santa Monica, California.

I Refuse To Be Fashion Conscious

Deepti Lamba — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:17:42 EDT

Big seems to be in. Whether it be the bumble bee shades or the tent like tops with tights people have now gone crazy looking their worst.

It is my personal perception of course, others who love wearing polka dotted sack clothes are welcome to disagree with me. But to expect me to be part of the herd and wear such clothes or look like a female mobster in big dark glasses is just not going to happen.

As it is after buying a shit expensive Da Milano bag I lost my mind looking for the house keys in a bag bigger than a black hole. But thanks to the trend of big bags and me being putty when it comes to shoes and bags I fell victim and spent five minutes outside the house looking for the keys and throwing all the contents of the bags on the bed to get to the cell phone later on.

In the end I found myself reverting to my old functional bag where things didn't hide in unchartered leathered territories.

Even Indian clothes have become jazzy with loud embroidery and flashy rhinestones.

The eighties seem to have returned and even though some of these clothes look nice on mannequins I look absurd in them. In Western outfits I look all boobs and legs and in Indian jazzy clothes I look like a bling bling Bhapi Lahari. Okay, the Bhapi Lahri part was taking it too far but you get what I mean- there is just too much bling in the sarees and don't get me started on the designs on some of the saree blouses.

Even men's formal Indian clothes have gone metro sexual with loud embroidery. Some shirts are transparent and show the male nipples!! Those, of course, as I had been told by a huffy boutique owner are for Western-cum Indian occasions- whatever that meant.

I wanted to tell her that it would be disconcerting for me to stare at some strange male nipples at a party but adhered back to my old mantra of keeping my trap shut.

When it comes to shoes, things have changed as well but having small feet I've always gone in for Flashy shoes and fell in love with a pair of high heeled fiery red shoes though they hurt like crazy.

Thankfully block heels continue to be the rage. They are comfortable, make the woman feel on top of the world and I absolutely love the animal prints on them.

But that is where my being fashion conscious stops. No Empire waist clothes for me or plastic bangles, massive belts or tights over my chubby thighs. I am strictly a jeans and t-shirt girl and if I am considered to be dowdy- so be it.

On Volga and Other Restaurants Not Gone "Disco" Yet

commonsense — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 03:00:21 EDT

It is a truism that globalization is engendering rapid social transformation around the world. Desi-land of course, is not immune to these changes. Some would even argue that India is currently situated at the very vortex of the global storm. Some of these changes, such as the cropping up of public toilets in Delhi are of course, very welcome. No need for the ubiquitous dekho gadhaaa moot raha hai (look, that shameless donkey is peeing in public!) graffiti that invariably failed in their goal of embarrassing men taking a leak against the walls.

Having indulged in this wretched behaviour more than once, I can vouch that, graffiti or not, it’s simply the best feeling in the world - especially after a beer too many and not a loo in sight. And women on the go, no longer have to barge into restaurants or even someone’s homes during such emergencies. The immaculate and always on time Delhi Metro is also a positive and long overdue change. Other transformations are not so positive and some are downright creepy. Too long a list to enumerate here!

Naturally, restaurants and cafes are not totally immune to these dramatic transformations. Indeed, the familiar “madras coffee houses” and their clones in Delhi, with their liveried waiters sporting their trade-mark pugrees are giving way to numerous global style cafes filled with well-groomed and manicured young patrons and waiters. Even the “great coffee house” of Delhi University that used to serve very cheap and delicious food in a languid atmosphere that allowed one to hang around for hours, has been muscled out by the brash Nirula’s that is expensive and armed with hawk-eyed table-cleaners who, through their not so subtle body-language, urge students to move on and make space for the next round of big-spenders who eye the occupied tables impatiently.

The noise level in most of these cafes has also gone global and people conversing with each other have to contend with the loud, generic (“dan, dan, dan”) café music. In Delhi, many restaurants are now staffed with waiters who refuse to let go of their broken English, even when spoken to in Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu.

One of them confided that he needed to practice English without which his hopes of moving on to a better establish would never materialize. In a number of these restaurants, the focus is invariable not on the food but on the décor and other accoutrement that supposedly contribute to something people refer to as the dining experience. Disturbingly, some of these globalized restaurants come equipped with distracting plasma screens that bombard patrons with images that are invariably out of synch with the loud music emanating from the Bose jewel-cube speakers. In local parlance, such places have suddenly gone “disco”.

The term “disco” has nothing to do with night-clubs or what used to be called discotheques. Rather the term is meant to capture the addition of unnecessary “razzle dazzle” paraphernalia to any institution, place or even person. Thus a person usually clad in kurta pajama, could indeed suddenly go “disco” simply by putting on a polyester “safari suit.” A cheeky, mocking response to a recently transformed individual would be something like Yeh Aadmi hai ya disco or perhaps Arrey, tumbhee disco ho gaye (even you have gone disco!), delivered in a tone of mock disappointment.

The fact that some restaurants are suddenly going “disco” is not necessarily a negative development. Plasma screens and incessant loud music in restaurants ostensibly single-mindedly devoted to gastronomical pleasures certainly have unintended uses. Such distractions from the main dish in a restaurant can be substitutes for conversation during awkward first dates or for the conversationally challenged. While for some, such trappings might detract from the food, for others, dining out is not necessarily about food alone but a multidimensional experience. It is, literally, a matter of taste!

However, thankfully, not all restaurants have gone “disco”. Among the many popular eating spots that are holding out against “discofication” is Volga on the inner circle of Connaught Place. Over the sixty years or so, of its existence, Volga has witnessed many transformations – independence, blows to the monopoly of the Congress, the once impressive Connaught Place becoming decrepit and once again, slowly on the mend. Restaurants with stylish names with decors to match -Piccadelhi, Mirchi, Nirula’s – have cropped up while others have disappeared.

Thankfully, despite all the temptations, the management of Volga refuses to make any concession to superficial changes in décor, style – not even, the style of service and management.

We arrive there at 12.30 pm, only to find a bold red sign indicating that it opens only at 1pm for lunch. There is also a bold poster that announces “cash only: no credit or debit cards accepted.” Impatiently peering through the dark windows, we can do nothing but observe the waiters languidly laying out the white table-cloths. With our intestines on the verge of eating themselves, we tug at the door handles at exactly 1pm. Still locked. We wait. Nothing happens. We just wait for a manager or a waiter to open the door or provide some indicate that Volga is open for business. No sign of any activity.

We are on the verge of giving up when at around 1.15, a couple of patrons arrive and open the door and walk in. Apparently at some point, someone unlatched the door from inside but didn’t care to disclose this act to any hungry customers milling outside. We troop in. From the 45 degrees C heat, we walk in to the spacious, comfortably dark and extremely cool interior. The half a dozen or so aging waiters congregate around the massive counter behind which sits a stern and serious manager, inspecting, collating and stamping various pieces of paper.

The waiters observe us and other customers without any hostility or the standard superficial and overbearing greeting - “hello, how are you today”? They are all clad in immaculately ironed jet-black trousers and almost neon white shirts. They appear to be wearing black helmets, but it’s only their freshly dyed jet-black hair that matches their trousers. For the uninitiated, they may appear to be stand-offish, perhaps even rude. Yet, they are neither indifferent nor unresponsive to the customers’ needs.

This is simply their style and the culture of some established restaurants in India. A slight eye contact and a mild gesture is enough to bring one of them to our table. Only then do I realize that his dyed helmet-haired was a great camouflage for his advanced age. His fingers quiver gently as he hands out the menu, and later, as he opens the bottles of Kingfisher beer. The food menu is not too extensive – at least when compared to the many restaurants that have gone “disco”. However, all the staples of Mughlai and Punjabi, and some hybrids of both, are represented.

The food, just as I remembered from my student days when we could barely afford to eat at Volga once a year or so is quite unremarkable, but utterly delicious.[editor's note: how can it be both?] The tables are huge with plenty of space between them to facilitate uninhibited conversation. There’s an anachronistic and deserted “ladies and family section” on the second floor, visible from where we are seated.

No effort is wasted on any décor - not even a stereotypical painting of India on the bare walls. But the atmosphere is pleasant and conducive to relaxed dining. No music at all to compete with the conversation. Except for the faint strains emanating from the flute seller selling CD’s just outside the restaurant. Within minutes, the restaurant is full customers, including a contingent of noisy Fulbright scholars, some with their bitter halves in tow. A small sign placed on one of the table indicates that they are having a reunion of sorts. Almost everyone, the Fulbrights as well as the half-brights like us are engaged in animated conversation lubricated by Kingfisher and the down-to-earth delicious food.

Social change is of course permanent and unstoppable. As the cliché goes, change is inevitable, except from a slot machine. I have nothing against restaurants or individuals going totally “disco”. Except for the fanatical fundamentalists thekedaars (self-appointed contractors of culture and religion) who yearn for a mythical purity or for the way we never were, most of us with a modicum of commonsense realize that diversity and continuous social change is the very essence of the human condition. However, for the sake of this very vibrant diversity, I do hope restaurants such as Volga and Embassy among others in Delhi, will not change or go “disco”.