Saturday, May 29, 2010

Dinner at Vishala

Today evening we went to Vishala for dinner. We were accompanied by two of our friend’s family also. My car had a narrow escape from a close kiss by a big truck lorry. Thankfully we reached safely all in one piece.

It was a dimly lit place. Most of the light was coming from kerosene lit lanterns. After long long time I saw a real lantern. I have seen lots of lanterns used in many of the restaurants. It has become a fad for resorts and restaurants to use lanterns. Most of the time these lanterns have electric lamps in them to provide illumination. As per me this is grave injustice to the pure soul of lantern. Lantern is meant to be illuminated with kerosene and not with Edison’s Electricity.

Searching our way we reached inside this spacious place. A man in traditional headgear welcomed us with rose sprinkled with synthetic aroma. I think this is again injustice with the soul of rose. Its original sweet smell deserves more respect. I have suddenly started behaving like film critic. I am talking more about souls and originality. May be operations management class at IIMA PGPX is having more than it’s share of influence on the poor soul (once again.. I told you…) of mine.

We were asked to pay in advance. Now this is never heard of in Indian style restaurants. Vishala is supposed to be a restaurant showcasing Indian traditional culture, craft and cuisine. It also boasts of a utensil museum. We were too hungry to be bothered by matters of history.

Our next stop was at puppet show. Kids had a great laugh at this. All of them enjoyed this thoroughly. Of all the arts showcased at Vishala this was in true traditional style. After this we stopped for some time at this central place where some local artists were trying to enthuse patrons with garba, ghazals and bhangra. Now this is truly something to cover all the different hues of Indian music in one setting. I was by this time almost starving for some mouth watering fair. I had already gulped 3 glasses of raw mango “panna”.

We were made to sit on ground to enjoy our dinner. Now it’s not easy for ladies to maintain this posture for a long time however slim they may be. When the serving started it was like avlanche of food items being served on the pattal(leaf dish). Initially I was impressed by sheer variety of dishes. Slowly I started tasting one dish after the other. Now I have to be very honest here. Truly speaking I wasn’t impressed with any dish in particular. I was constantly searching for a dish, which I could feast upon. Sadly I just kept roaming from one dish to another. Service was good and prompt.

After this came the best part of the evening. We once again went to the central place where local artistes were trying to serve potpourri of Indian music laced with western beats. We made demand for some old ghazals. The singer was not prepared for those numbers. He tried to impress us with best of the numbers in his repertoire. We also joined in chorus to enjoy the best part of evening. After this a bunch of young hip crowd came with guys in funny hair does and gals in skimpy revealing clothes. I think to be hip you have to follow these basic traits. They demanded some disco garba and bhangra. The artisans obliged promptly with whatever they could do. Suddenly everybody was dancing there. Kids, spouses everyone had their share of latkas and jhatkas.

We had meetha pan to put icing on our dinner expedition. Home journey back was uneventful. Overall an enjoyable evening in company of friends and family…. It’s surprising to have this kind of relaxed evening for a serious PGPX student at IIM Ahmedabad…

2 comments:

Kueriioz said...

This was a cse of plain cheating. I was left behind, and now will sue Nagesh for the lost fun.

Nagesh said...

I won't repeat the same mistake. Promise...