Fast Food Lingo

Being in Bangalore one of my acquired habits have been eating out in these so called joints popularly known as Fast Food joints. Many of the residents address it as Darshini also. These are small eat outs where in you order for your food and get it across the counter and you can just choose one of the least crowded round table conference and eat it. If you are looking around for a chair, then sorry you may not find it. Perfectly works if you are in a hurry for your work and want to pickup something real quick. But you should be aware of the Fast Food Lingo to order your food. Or else you may not get the dish exactly you wanted.

If you are wondering how challenging it could be… here is the 101 course for ordering the first item in the menu. The famous South Indian breakfast Idly. Talking about Idly, it is one breakfast that never be cooked unhygenic. The way it is prepared makes it always hygenic. Not sure about the chutney or sambar you get with it though…. I am deviating from what I wanted to say and giving health tips here. Ordering Idly may not be as simple as you think. Many of the people who eat idly like it to be completely soaked in Sambar (lentil sauce) before eating it. Few people like me do not like it to be soaked in Sambar but like to order sambar separately along with the idly. If you are of the former catergory then you will not have that many challenges as anyone from my category would face.

When you get the bill and walk across to the food counter which is always crowded with people waiting for the food items to arrive, you need to be real fast in saying exactly what you need. Forget all the grammar and proper sentence formation you have learnt in school. This is fast food. So everything including ordering for the item should be fast. The moment you say idly you will the person who is serving would place the idly in a bowl like plate, pour Sambar over it and give it to you. Naah…this is not what I wanted…I wanted it to be separate. So this is how I saw people ordering for Sambar. They said "Idly Sambar kodi" (Give Idly Sambar).

So I used my intelligence quotient to figure out how to order for the sambar separately. Next time I was very careful and ordered for "Idly one plate kodi,(pause) Sambar separate kodi" But to my surprise I again got Idly soaked in Sambar and person looked bit puzzled and hesitated before giving it to me. Then I found that the pause was the problem and plate coming after Idly was the problem. The moment he had heard Idly one plate, the subconsicous instructions have triggered and he put Idly and Sambar together and gave it to me. This was a great insult to my intelligence and was a challenging problem than the severity one issue my customer had been facing. I decided to come up with a more innovative solution.

I revised the sentence formation class from my High School to make sure Idly goes close to Sambar separate. Probably getting a advise from a shorthand typist could have worked better. Next time I went I ordered "One plate Idly kodi, Sambar separate kodi" (I want one plate idly and sambar separately). But still the lingo God was not in my favor I got Idly and Sambar together…Aaaahgh!!!

The problem became more serious as this happened. It was a huge challenge for my intelligence. I thought my sentence is still too long. I need to make it short. So against my consciousness of forming a proper sentence I thought I will compromise on the sentence formation and go short hand way. I thought of removing the verbs and not so necessary nouns in the sentence. I went with a great eager and excitement to conquer this lingo which has been bothering me a lot. I asked "Idly Sambar separate". Ha Ha I thought I just made it but alas! it did not work out. I still got Idly and Sambar together with the same puzzled look from the person who served it to me.

I was puzzled and was thinking how short I can get it. I can’t say just idly, or I can’t say just Sambar and I can’t just say….!!! Wait a minute…Hurray I just got what I wanted to say…

I went in the next day and ordered "Idly separate". Bingo! I got Idly and Sambar separately. "Idly separate" in no way would mean anything to anyone else…but its the perfect programmed statement for ordering a Idly and Sambar separately.

 

Congratulations as a reader you have also passed the 101 course in Fast Food lingo!!!