A quiet dinner made interesting

After work on a day of heavy torrential downpour, I decided to head to the nearby Siglap area to have a quiet (and brooding) dinner by myself. My first choice was to eat cheap - at Rajah's prata shop. To my disappointment, it was closed and I decided to move on to my second option - Pizza Hut - only if they had the summer vegetable soup. I knew tonight was not going to be my night when they told me that they no longer have that soup on their menu. So, I decided to exercise the safest option available - eat at Chutney Mary (a small restaurant serving Indian snacks and main courses). Having ordered a biryani and a rogan josh, I sipped my masala tea, looking forward to the dinner in solace.

Before the food I ordered arrived, an old couple (maybe in their 60s) sat on the table next to mine. And then started a somewhat interesting, somewhat irritating but devoid of solitude dinner. They were a stereotypical old Indian couple - the lady a nagging complaining wife, the man listening to his wife's nagging but not caring much about it husband. The lady spent many minutes trying to get the waiter to explain what was meant by "Shami Kebab" in every minute detail. Dissatisfied after the poor waiter's best attempts at explaining, she then spent a few minutes lamenting how the waiters neither know how to serve nor know what they are serving, with the husband joining in with a nod of his head. After a few more detailed queries on some other items, the couple finally got down to the business of ordering. There was another mini disapproval session when the waiter actually understood and repeated one of their somewhat complicated order correctly, but the lady decide to ignore that and re-emphasize the whole thing again, making sure the waiter felt that he had got it wrong after all.

Now that the waiter had gone (and I bet none of them wanted to hover around their table, and by a sad spacial extension mine as well), the lady started making comments about the dishes being brought to a party of 3 at another table (my food had not arrived by then, ergo I was spared). Somehow the mini-basket in which they serve the bread caught her attention so much that she called the waiter to ask "what is that thing on that table" in a voice loud enough for the diners at that table to hear. After a few minutes of explanation from the poor waiter with the "oh-kill-me" face, she finally understood that that is how the restaurant serves bread. She loudly remarked that she wanted the basket too, although I suspect that they hadn't ordered bread in the first place. By this time my food arrived, and I think she remarked something about the dish in which my biryani was served, although I did not catch the exact remark. This was followed by some more lamentations about how Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta & co were just shaking their hips and not actually dancing in the song "Maahi Ve" that was being shown on the television screen in the restaurant. Throughout all this, I was so tempted to do a House and say something very House-like to them but I guess real life is not a televised drama and one should refrain from bringing House-like characters out in such situations.

So that was my dinner...which I had hoped would be peaceful but it never was. At the end of it, I was thinking "I hope Nirva and I do not end up like that when we grow old" (Don't worry jaan, I know you can never been that nagging lady-:)). That was definitely not what I wanted my old age to be. And that led me thinking to the frequent discussions I have had with my friend and colleague Edwin about whether we will repeat the same mistakes as our parents as we grow old and as we bring up our kids. Both of us have seen that our dads have not been the dads they should have been through our childhood and teenage years. Having gone through that experience and being cognizant of those flaws should enable us to consciously avoid repeating those same mistakes when we grow old and raise our children. But Edwin will always say that that might not be the case - there is a good chance that we will also end up repeating those things, despite knowing the contrary. I don't believe so, but sometimes I do wonder, will we? Will I be a good husband and a good dad as I grow old? Will I learn from watching my dad when I was growing up and not repeat those mistakes?

I guess only time will tell.