My LOL moment...

Last Sunday, at about this time, I was in Vasai, setting up camp there and preparing for the arrival of my mom and grandma the following day. For all those who haven't spoken to me in the last one week (and I'd like to know why..hmph..) here's a little recap..the home at Borivli is getting renovated..which will take about a month or so..and therefore, we have temporarily shifted base to our other home at Vasai. Now this place in Vasai has been lying uninhabited for the past year, ever since we purchased it. And consequently, I knew very little about the area. I got my chance to explore around dinner-time on Sunday. I had to eat, and the kitchen at home wasn't functional back then. So I left home at 8.30 pm and started hunting for a place where I could get decent dinner. And what a hunt it was! Vasai has no freaking places to eat! See, at Borivli, one can always be assured of a constant supply of food. One simply cannot starve there. But Vasai, that was a whole different story altogether. I looked, and looked, and did more walking around on that one evening than I would have done in the course of an entire month, normally. I came across quite a few shady joints and it was beginning to look like it would be death-by-starvation for me out there (though the fat reserves in my body would have ensured I died a slower death). Finally, I did the wise thing. I asked a couple of women passers-by if they could recommend a decent dining joint. And they did. Which is how I came across Hotel DreamLand.

Hotel DreamLand, situated a little off the main road, is a 'family resturant and bar'. Very ironical, I thought, considering I neither drink, nor was I with family. And so I sauntered in, my iRiver faithfully blasting music into my ears, for my first gastronomical experience at Vasai. I mistakenly wandered into the bar area at first, and felt pretty much like the rabbit let into the lion's cave, as a dozen or so heads snapped up to look at me. All men, in varying degrees of drunken-ness, wondering, no doubt, what I was doing there. Given my strong 'women's lib'-ish tendencies, I thought, at first, of boldly walking in, calling for a beer and displaying my 'who-needs-guys' badge, but 20 years of Brahmin conditioning ensured that I would never touch a beer bottle, and my innate 'women-ness' ensured my wariness of strangers in a strange land. And so, I beat a hasty retreat and this time, with relief, walked into the proper dining area.

The first table was occupied by this rather furtive-looking couple. My mind immediately went into over-drive. Hmm..looks like love on the sly, my mind whispered, probably a secret date, away from the prying eyes of parents. I am ashamed to confess that I thought it would be quite entertaining if one set of parents walked in (on a romantic date themselves, perhaps? or with secret boyfriends/girlfriends of their own?? hahaha..disgusting I know, but you know what they say about idle minds and devils) and caught the couple making out or something. The showdown that would inevitably ensue, would be good amusement while dinner happened, I thought. My eyes wandered to the second table, the occupants of which was this extremely call-centre type couple. See, that's the thing about working for call-centres. You can spot your kind from a mile away. The guy had T-shirt on with the name of some weird metallic/rock group printed in loud and garish style, and shorts. Unruly, long hair. Unshaven. Unmistakeably pav. The girl looked okie-dokie. I didn't expect much entertainment from this couple. Unless the guy decided to do something weird. Like waltzing to the 'kuch toh hua hai' that was playing on the restaurant's music system (I wouldn't have been surprised..pavs will waltz to anything. I, and a lot other non-pavs have come to the silent agreement that most pavs equate dancing with waltzing..and jiving..there's little else that they do on the dance floor..every song can either be waltzed to or jived to..if neither works, there's always is good ol' salsa, which most equate with shaking their bodies in slow, rythmic movements..like they are having a slow-motion attack of fits..). I know, I know..that might have made me sound a little racist, but really I have nothing against pavs. Quite a few of them are real good buddies, and past record shows that I have a history of falling for pavs more than any other class/community of people. But the fact remains that most pavs are into waltz and jive..not a bad thing, but tedious. You can send me hate mail later, if you wish.

Couple three, who occupied the table immediately next to mine, looked like a newly-married couple. Definitely an arranged marriage, I thought. Probably one of those after-marriage dinners when you get to know your partner, and realize that you have nothing in common. And so you decide to have a child or two. A kid would mean you have something in common, right? (I know, I know, this makes me look like an anti-arranged-marriage fanatic of some kind, which I am, btw..no offence to all those who've hitched their matrimonial tents on tried and tested grounds..but I am strongly intimidated by this whole 'arranged-marriage' scene and no matter how much someone tries to convince me that it isn't as sad as it was back in the ol' days, my revulsion remains). I am expecting hate mail on this point as well. Back to couple three. Husband was having beer, wife was looking on disinterestedly. They both looked a little bored. The wife looked a little lost in her thoughts. Probably wondering why she didn't run off with her lover the night before the marriage. But that's just my evil mind at work again. I wondered what fun element the couple could afford me. Unless the wife whisked away the whisky/beer/strange-looking-liquid away from the husband's hand and started lecturing him about the virtues of being a teetotaller (did I get the spelling right?) or better still, glugged it down herself and demanded some more, the fun element looked zilch. As an aside, when a little later, the husband left the room for a smoke break (the only reason I knew it was a 'smoke break' was bcos I spied him outside, lighting up), the wife whipped out her cell-phone and had this rather short, hurried conversation with someone. I allow people their privacy, so I did not eavesdrop, but my mind went into overdrive again. The 'secret lover' suspicion was confirmed. Unless she happened to be calling up her Mom to ask if there were any home remedies she could try to cure her husband of the persistent snoring.

Couple four was just two men, so that didn't really make tham a couple, unless they happened to be gay. One of them kept staring at me all through dinner. No doubt forming unsavoury comments about me, the way I was doing about the other patrons of that fine restaurant..but I am a bit of a hyprocrite. So I didn't enjoy the attention I was getting from those quarters.

I am a very slow eater. Anyone who's ever had the pleasuring of eating out with me will tell you that. So I had ample time to make these above observations. Nothing interesting was happening, so I wondered if I should just turn to my iRiver again, when entered this gregarious bunch of college kids. Three girls, four boys. I wondered if one of the girls was encouraging a threesome. But you know, these kind of huge numbers and odd pairings happen only when you are in college. Seldom do office-going people hang about in such large numbers, unless there's a team outing or so, and they looked too 'lukka' to be gainfully employed in a bpo unit. So college students they must have been. I would have dismissed the whole crowd without much notice if it hadn't been for the presence of a very good-looking young man in that crowd. Now I am a single chick and enjoy my 'boy-watch'. Fact is, there are very few men who I'd find interesting enough to go around with. And so due to this lack of 'good men', I have resigned myself to eyeing the cuter ones. And this guy was cute. Not someone I would have noticed normally, but in a wilderness like Vasai, he was prominently noticeable. The state of affairs became clear enough. It was evident that there were two couples in that crowd; the others were just 'lukkas'. And cutie was part of one couple. The chick he was evidently with, was this nice-looking girl, and I thought he'd done rather well for himself. But she looked a little uncomfortable with the cutlery. I thought it'd be great fun if she happened to jab the fork into her nostril or something...cutie would no doubt immediately dump the chick-with-the disgusting-table-manners and come to me, Ms. Manners herself. Chuckle. Gawd, talk of despos! But no such incident happened. Dinner proceeded smoothly, and the chick managed to eat most of her dinner without any accident.

Soon enough, dinner ended for me as well. I paid the bill and left Hotel DreamLand. And thus ended my very memorable dinner at Vasai. Btw, for all those who stay in Vasai, or find themselves in that vicinity, here's a rating for DreamLand Hotel, just in case you decide to pop in there for a quick bite :

Location : Sux, middle of nowhere
Food : So-so
Ambience : Huh?
Service : Huh?, again
Entertainment : Mind-blowing