The Stuffing & Gobbling Etiquette!

After 2 months of my married life, my hubby had a training somewhere near Pune & I planned to accompany him.. He, coming from the armed forces background, follows a stream of customs & protocols. But myself, though i am from the bon-ton, i love enjoying life to the fullest.. No rules! No decorums!

As officers mostly don't take their wives to these trainings, they do not usually provide houses with kitchen. But in our case, we just got married & i wanted to explore new places!! Not having a kitchen in your house has its positives & negatives..

Positives:
1. You need not cook!
2. You need not buy the groceries!
3. You need not wake up early to make breakfast!
4. You need not have a huge luggage piled up at the end of your trip!!

There are so many optimistic "need nots" man! But there was only one Negative that shot up on the first day & continued to have impact on me even after we left.. :-(

We had reached this place on a chilly night in early November last year.. After a long winding travel in car, we had no other option other than coil up ourselves in those cosy beds.. So my husband didn't have any time to brief up of my forthcoming ordeal..........


Breakfast was served at 8AM on all days in the officer-cum-family dining hall.. So we both were up at around 6.45 & had tough time with the heater, had bath, dressed up neatly & all set to go for the EVENT! Once we reached the place which was a 5 minute walk from our place, we found that we were the first couple standing with starved out bellies, but the dining hall was yet to be opened..!


After 15, 20 minutes someone came by & opened the hall... Probably he heard our hunger sound! Need not to tell, we pounced inside & what I saw in the hall was even more sorrowful in my case.. It was a buffet system.. Alright... Fine... I saw spoons, forks, knives & plates piled up in the first place.. I sensed that the breakfast was bread omelet! I had no other go.. I gathered some courage, went ahead, took out a plate & picked up 3 bread omelets.. My husband called me back & asked me to take a knife & fork along with the plate.. I was shocked! What the heck!? Why would i eat bread omelet using these instruments!! I very well can eat using my hands.. (Alright, lets try eating with them... I am not gonna waste a single second else my belly is gonna die!) Pat came the next call from my husband again.. "Take just one bread omelet. If u still need one more, go for it later." What? What?? I could see more officers in uniform, their wives, wailing & notorious kids walking inside the hall.. I didn't want to do injustice to my starved out body!

When i looked up at my husband i understood that i had 0% option to take a 2nd piece!.. I looked at him again with my eyes indicating towards the second piece.. I know! I am an understanding wife! So i could actually feel my husband's face growing red.. He was getting angry because:
(1) He was getting late for the training scheduled.
(2) There was a Q behind him waiting with equal hunger as us!
(3) The others who were seated in the table & those waiting were senior officers!!

By now actually i could feel that my hunger has half gone! May be it had decided to attack me at an exorbitant rate after my husband leaves!! Poor me... I followed my husband with that single divine khana to seat myself in the long dining table.. On seeing it i can remember one English movie. Yes guys! It resembled like that of what we have all seen in Titanic movie.. I was like the hero who had to sit with highly well-to-do people! My God! As these things were running at the back of my head, suddenly 2 officers almost got up from their seats and emphatically said "GOOD MORNING MA'M!!" Thats it! Gone! My Hunger!!!! Gone forever i believe!!! I almost dropped my plate & those funny instruments from my hand!!! They appeared in their middle age 40-some, but still they enjoyed calling me Ma'm! Do you know where my hunger was by now? It came right in front of me, gave me one tight slap & left me forever! :-(

After this, i tried hard to concentrate on how people were managing to eat with the fork & knife.. I turned to my husband... Gosh! His plate lied empty! He was done with his breakfast!! Was he going to leave me alone?? I havent touched my khana yet! Should i continue my eating stunts in front of these "respectful" officers?! My God! No way.....After my husband left giving me an assuring "i too can eat like him" kinda smile, I decided to wait for those officers to complete first.. Meanwhile i wanted to act & asked for a glass of milk as suggested by my husband to ask for "just one glass"... By the time the steward brought in the milk, these officers "excused" themselves & left the hall..

Shoot! I tried my hands on the fork & knife.. I held the fork in my left hand & knife in my right as my husband ate.. I held the fork tight onto the bread & cut using my knife.. No way, nothing got cut.. "Try and fail, but don't fail to try".. Yeah, so on the third or fourth try, my fork had picked up a shapeless piece of it & straight away gobbled it in a haste.. Same way i continued stuffing the rest of it.. By the time i finished eating, i could find a dim light around me... It was half past nine! The Steward Ganesh was closing all the window screens.. It seemed like a warning signal to me "Are you going to stop your stupid eating of just one bread omelet & leave this hall or shall i lock you in??".. Feeling embarassed, i decided not to go for another bread omelet as craved before & i brought the glass of milk closer to me. I saw 3 labeled similar looking containers saying "Tea", "sugar" & "coffee".. Ganesh instructed that the "tea" labeled container will have Bournvita kinda beverage.. As i strictly hate coffee & tea, i was relieved that something of my taste was there.. By then Ganesh has half closed the main door.. Time was nearing 9.40! He started talking something in Hindi to me, which i swear i didnt understand.. But i sensed that he is asking me to get out soon! So i opened the "tea" container & took a spoonful of it & a spoonful from the "sugar" & mixed them in my glass of milk.. I found some difference in it.. But unable to discover any, i sipped the milk & GOD! It was coffee! I couldnt drink any of it.. I could see that Ganesh was eyeing me from some corner.. Slowly I acted to sip.. I sipped some.. I wanted to spit it out.. By then some officer came inside to speak with Ganesh, didnt want to miss the chance, i quickly slipped the glass of coffee on the chair my husband sat & I left the hall once for all!!...

Way back home I was feeling heavy at heart! One and a half hour solid... just went away for eating a bread omelet..... My God... Still 3 months to go!