It was another rainy Saturday afternoon at Mangalore and another of Pramod’s weekend visits. Gosh!! Sometimes I wish this weekend life came to an end overnight- in fact - whatever we wish for happens overnight…!! Shucks am getting into this mode of aimless rambling these days- but that what a weekend life right after marriage and a close to three years long distance relationship can do to you at times. Ok…Coming back to what I started with- after a lazy morning that Saturday we dropped into the “PadmaSri” restaurant at Hotel Srinivas for late lunch at 3:00 pm. Hotel Srinivas is one of the oldest and established places of its kind in good old Mangalore and renown for its decent room and restaurant services. We found a table and quickly placed our order of some appetizers and rice. I just gazed around the room for familiar faces, if any- these days u could bump into an Infoscion anywhere in Mangalore J and noticed a large table of men and women seated in the ratio of 19:7. They seemed like folks from an office, attending a lunch treat hosted by their boss or something…almost all of them were in their late thirties and early forties. The waiters were extremely active and serving them tons of rotis, panner, biriyani and lip smacking spicy food. The women folk were draped in saris, adorned with fair amount of traditional gold jewellery, jasmine flowers- seated and bunched up together on one side of the table and men folk occupied the other significant portion of the table. Bottom-line- they were having a good time- enjoying the food, laughing and cracking jokes having fun on their day out of office.
My mind went back two weeks in time when Pramod and I were at Palkhi with a friend for dinner…again there was a large table of men and women seated in the ratio of some 15:13, (I sometimes have this weird sense of ratios, time and observation…pardon me for the odd ratios!!) mostly friends and probably few from family, celebrating a birthday party. All of them were in mid twenties to early thirties, and most of them- both men and women were sipping cocktails and seated in an almost alternate guy-girl arrangement. The women had straightened hair and fitting clothes, and men t-shirts and trimmed hair. Soon the birthday guy with his wife by his side cut the cake and shared it with folks around him, applauses and shouts and laughs followed. Soon our appetizers arrived and I got reminded of the masala fries we had once eaten at a place called “Cherry’s Square”- this is yet another decent hangout located near St.Agnes to attract the college guys and gals..mostly teens…when I’d been there, a strong “I am two generations older” feeling took over me…especially since I was in an outdated boring blue salwar and had tied my hair into a ponytail … most of the girls had streaked their hair purple or burgundy or red…had fancy bangs and ear, nose, lip piercings….they broke into giggles for everything…not to mention the guys with cool long hair and funky t-shirts and beards. It was a semi open-air atmosphere, with tables for twos or fours only, some cool music playing in the background and had a designer washbasin made out of clear glass cut into the shape of a perfect semi circular sphere…I ordered some pizzas and a delicious hot fudge chocolate sundae after the masala fries. The burgers, pizzas, sandwiches here were tailored to the spicy Indian tongue, and perfectly fit the fast food category fondly addressed as junk by all health freaks! Guys and gals were in groups of two or four, guy and girl in the ratio of 1:1, usually biting into the burgers or digging into sundaes.
I came to reality at some steaming, hot rice placed before me and mentioned to Pramod my string of thoughts. He spoke about his mom and dad…on a fresh morning his dad brings blossomed flowers from their garden and gives it to mom, on days their boys are engrossed in their own worlds the parents go for a regional movie in the theatre near home and have dosa at their favorite place, they take walks at night in the colony park and these parents are in their sixties….we smiled at each other for my funny string of thoughts that jumped from generation to generation..…hasn’t each age group defined leisure in their own terms and drawn lines to enjoy daily life at their own limitations and disposal? It’s beautiful to simply watch this!! As the gap between sexes continues to dwindle with time- a question came to my mind…Are we able to embrace the change from generation to generation?? Or are we even supposed to embrace this change? Should we ignore the change and continue in our boundaries, or explore and taste what the world offers to every new generation?
My mind went back two weeks in time when Pramod and I were at Palkhi with a friend for dinner…again there was a large table of men and women seated in the ratio of some 15:13, (I sometimes have this weird sense of ratios, time and observation…pardon me for the odd ratios!!) mostly friends and probably few from family, celebrating a birthday party. All of them were in mid twenties to early thirties, and most of them- both men and women were sipping cocktails and seated in an almost alternate guy-girl arrangement. The women had straightened hair and fitting clothes, and men t-shirts and trimmed hair. Soon the birthday guy with his wife by his side cut the cake and shared it with folks around him, applauses and shouts and laughs followed. Soon our appetizers arrived and I got reminded of the masala fries we had once eaten at a place called “Cherry’s Square”- this is yet another decent hangout located near St.Agnes to attract the college guys and gals..mostly teens…when I’d been there, a strong “I am two generations older” feeling took over me…especially since I was in an outdated boring blue salwar and had tied my hair into a ponytail … most of the girls had streaked their hair purple or burgundy or red…had fancy bangs and ear, nose, lip piercings….they broke into giggles for everything…not to mention the guys with cool long hair and funky t-shirts and beards. It was a semi open-air atmosphere, with tables for twos or fours only, some cool music playing in the background and had a designer washbasin made out of clear glass cut into the shape of a perfect semi circular sphere…I ordered some pizzas and a delicious hot fudge chocolate sundae after the masala fries. The burgers, pizzas, sandwiches here were tailored to the spicy Indian tongue, and perfectly fit the fast food category fondly addressed as junk by all health freaks! Guys and gals were in groups of two or four, guy and girl in the ratio of 1:1, usually biting into the burgers or digging into sundaes.
I came to reality at some steaming, hot rice placed before me and mentioned to Pramod my string of thoughts. He spoke about his mom and dad…on a fresh morning his dad brings blossomed flowers from their garden and gives it to mom, on days their boys are engrossed in their own worlds the parents go for a regional movie in the theatre near home and have dosa at their favorite place, they take walks at night in the colony park and these parents are in their sixties….we smiled at each other for my funny string of thoughts that jumped from generation to generation..…hasn’t each age group defined leisure in their own terms and drawn lines to enjoy daily life at their own limitations and disposal? It’s beautiful to simply watch this!! As the gap between sexes continues to dwindle with time- a question came to my mind…Are we able to embrace the change from generation to generation?? Or are we even supposed to embrace this change? Should we ignore the change and continue in our boundaries, or explore and taste what the world offers to every new generation?
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