Postscript
The Watching Game
Eating out has always been the most popular form of entertainment worldwide. For Dhakaites, whose options for fun are getting more and more limited, it is almost a necessity. Funnily enough, it is not always the great food that attracts clientele to crowd restaurants and eateries but rather the entertainment provided by others that makes a visit to the most dubious joint, an interesting experience.
Thanks to our total disregard for privacy many restaurant goers are happy just to order the bare minimum (like an ice tea or lassi) just to be able to sit in and eavesdrop on other people's conversations.
Usually there will be an individual who will make his/her importance in the food chain public by talking loudly on the mobile phone. Take this monologue at a recently opened kabab place where the skills of the cook who takes pride in making as much noise as possible while grilling the meat, pales in comparison to the colourful customers who haunt the place. An assorted group is sitting at the farthest corner of the open space where tables are strategically placed so that everyone can see and hear everyone else. A youngish man with a scarf and sporting a garish red shirt is on the phone while a heavily made up woman with bleached hair, flirts with another young man, allowing him to meticulously inspect the henna on her palms. The man on the cell phone is least bothered by what is going on in front of him, taking meagre sips from his greenish-yellowish drink. “I don't think you know what I am made of mamu (uncle). Do you know what kind of connections I have? The OC is very fond of me, he calls me 'dosto'. I can just call up any SP, MP, DC or DG of any organisation and they will happily do what I want. So mamu, never doubt my capabilities, all you have to do is do this little favour for me…”
Are these the ominous threats of an extortionist? Or perhaps he is hiring an assassin to kill another scum bag. Maybe he's just a poor fool hopelessly in love with some tycoon's daughter and needs an intermediary to make his candidacy as a prospective groom, more agreeable. Perhaps it is all of the above.
What could be more entertaining than such drama while munching on kebab and greasy naan?
But wait. The sounds of quarelling are wafting in from another table. A couple in distress by the looks of it. You know they are in a fairly new relationship because they are sitting cozily on one side instead of opposite one another. The faces though, are sullen, the young woman is in a permanent pout and the young man keeps sighing in exasperation.
“How can I trust you?” Why did you answer her text if she means nothing to you?'
“I was just being polite?”
“Really? That's why you called her jaanu, to be polite?”
Longish pause from the man's side, then sputtering over the lassi they are sharing with two straws.
“Um um, ahem, it was a mistake, I didn't realise what I was doing, I swear there is nothing between her and me.”
By now the young woman has relocated to the opposite chair and her face is going from red to purplish, nostrils are flared and teeth kind of gnashing.
“Oh really? Then why jaanu?
“Heh heh, actually I think it was out of habit. I have never called her by her name you see.”
This no doubt will be enough to cause the damsel to throw her paper napkin on the table and storm out, her paramour in tow, mumbling apologies while handing a few notes to the waiter.
Finally one can go back to one's meal in peace. Enough drama for one day, you would think. Yet there is a strange feeling of discomfiture as you and your companions go back to your chit chat and food.
People are watching you. It includes the young man in the scarf who has abandoned his cell phone for a while to watch you and co. You, with food falling on your lap as you knock the lassi over, despite sincere efforts to be suave, are now, the entertainment.
Usually there will be an individual who will make his/her importance in the food chain public by talking loudly on the mobile phone. Take this monologue at a recently opened kabab place where the skills of the cook who takes pride in making as much noise as possible while grilling the meat, pales in comparison to the colourful customers who haunt the place. An assorted group is sitting at the farthest corner of the open space where tables are strategically placed so that everyone can see and hear everyone else. A youngish man with a scarf and sporting a garish red shirt is on the phone while a heavily made up woman with bleached hair, flirts with another young man, allowing him to meticulously inspect the henna on her palms. The man on the cell phone is least bothered by what is going on in front of him, taking meagre sips from his greenish-yellowish drink. “I don't think you know what I am made of mamu (uncle). Do you know what kind of connections I have? The OC is very fond of me, he calls me 'dosto'. I can just call up any SP, MP, DC or DG of any organisation and they will happily do what I want. So mamu, never doubt my capabilities, all you have to do is do this little favour for me…”
Are these the ominous threats of an extortionist? Or perhaps he is hiring an assassin to kill another scum bag. Maybe he's just a poor fool hopelessly in love with some tycoon's daughter and needs an intermediary to make his candidacy as a prospective groom, more agreeable. Perhaps it is all of the above.
What could be more entertaining than such drama while munching on kebab and greasy naan?
But wait. The sounds of quarelling are wafting in from another table. A couple in distress by the looks of it. You know they are in a fairly new relationship because they are sitting cozily on one side instead of opposite one another. The faces though, are sullen, the young woman is in a permanent pout and the young man keeps sighing in exasperation.
“How can I trust you?” Why did you answer her text if she means nothing to you?'
“I was just being polite?”
“Really? That's why you called her jaanu, to be polite?”
Longish pause from the man's side, then sputtering over the lassi they are sharing with two straws.
“Um um, ahem, it was a mistake, I didn't realise what I was doing, I swear there is nothing between her and me.”
By now the young woman has relocated to the opposite chair and her face is going from red to purplish, nostrils are flared and teeth kind of gnashing.
“Oh really? Then why jaanu?
“Heh heh, actually I think it was out of habit. I have never called her by her name you see.”
This no doubt will be enough to cause the damsel to throw her paper napkin on the table and storm out, her paramour in tow, mumbling apologies while handing a few notes to the waiter.
Finally one can go back to one's meal in peace. Enough drama for one day, you would think. Yet there is a strange feeling of discomfiture as you and your companions go back to your chit chat and food.
People are watching you. It includes the young man in the scarf who has abandoned his cell phone for a while to watch you and co. You, with food falling on your lap as you knock the lassi over, despite sincere efforts to be suave, are now, the entertainment.
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