Cultural Shock

Central Park guest house, Chennai

Having lived in over 6 cities I faced the biggest cultural shock today in my own country. The food here is pretty straight forward with people clear what they want to have in dinner when they go to a restaurant, unlike me where it takes me around 15 minutes to decide and I end up with a masala dosa every time. One of the suits I really wear on very well is being ambitious and I credit the computer game FIFA 08 for switching it for me. I walked into Sarvana Bhavan, quite a popular restaurant chain founded in 1981 and decided to order something which I haven't eaten before. 7 star uttapam please, I said and the waited gave me alien look and walked away. After 20 long minutes, which was the longest time I have ever waited for my order in Chennai, the waiter gave me 7 tiny-mini uttapams each with different sauce or chatni including plain tomato sauce. My first reaction was to avoid anyone see me eating this and ate it as fast as I could. I am pretty confident that they must have celebrated in the kitchen for selling their 7 star dish to a foreigner. In the end I wasn't satisfied with my meal and ended up eating sambar idly.

After this incident, I am well prepared to face such shocks and now I have got my concepts clear around south Indian food. Weather is fine with little drizzle in the evening and the day covered with clouds.