It was around 9:30 PM now and we just started on Mumbai highway from BHEL circle, Lingampally. Iqbal was on front seat and Jasmin and I were settling down on back seat. Seats were really very comfortable as we were only four people and it was far better than semi-sleeper Volvo seat. It was around 550 km distance and we never had that long tour previously. Also it was night driving, so me and Iqbal were little scared as Shravan was not looking very confident. But as I mentioned earlier, he was on the driver seat to gain that confidenceLLL. Actually he has good driving skills but the problem was; he was driving in the night and he believes that car cannot be driven on less than 80 kmph speed and 100-110 kmph is the ideal speed. Also we were confident that Shravan will not give driver seat to anybody until he himself feels that “now it’s the real danger to even drive for the 100 meters!!!!” . Jasmin was the other option available for driving. He had vast experience in driving long distance in the night (Don’t ask me, I don’t know the reasonJ). So here Jasmin was acting as an expert to Shravan and was there to take the driver seat anytime.
I and Iqbal had already expressed our fear on the day we finalize for the tour and discussed our ‘plan of action’ to control Shravan’s excitement. So we started talking about how there are two drivers in the Volvo for overnight journey and how they drive on rotation basis. We were talking on high pitch so that Shravan can hear it and also feel the ‘sensibility’ towards risk but Shravan had started the music instead. Now another task was to let Jasmin have his sleep so that when ‘real’ need arises, he should be able to drive it. For that, first we had to complete our dinner.
We were searching for good ‘Dhaba’ on highway. Our previous tours were down south, so we always stored some chips and other snacks stuff from “Hot Chips” in the car bcoz after searching for good north Indian food for two hours on the road, we always ended-up with curd rice in the plate. This time we assumed that we were travelling on national highway towards Maharashtra so there must be good ‘North Indian Dhaba’ on the way so we didn’t bother to take snacks with us. In fact, we were very excited to have true north-indian taste on our tongue. We skipped two average looking dhaba in the excitement and driven on next 35 kms in the search of some decent place. The excitement now turned into worry for me and Iqbal as our primary aim was to give Jasmin a restJ. Everybody was feeling hungry now and not seeing any ray of hope. Actually there were no restaurants coming on the way from last 5-6 kms so I and Iqbal compromised on the quality of dhaba and pretended to starve. We decided to stop on the first restaurant we encounter and after 2.5 kms we were in front of the dhaba which was looking 99% worse than the first two we have skipped. Everybody repented on over-excitement and hesitated to go-off the car. But I gave them the philosophical lecture of not to surrender to greed as this is already the result of the same. I told them, further we act greedy, we might not have even this dhaba. The last sentence worked well and we entered the dhaba with winking smiley from Iqbal to me.
There were 6 to 8 steel tables in dhaba with bill counter in the left side of the entrance. Open kitchen was on right side with 2 person sitting there. Two groups of people were seating on the middle two tables. We selected last corner table and sat there. Jasmin asked me to give order so I looked for the waiter to come. I have waited for 5-7 minutes but no one was even looking at our table so I decided to better call the waiter and order for the food. Now the real problem for me was; everyone present in the restaurant were looking like waiter, including the group of people sitting on the middle tableJ. It looked like the hotel staff were having their dinner at the end of the day. I remained silent for next 3 minutes. Suddenly, a boy standing in the kitchen area appeared saying, “kya loge??”. He was smelling very badly with desi daroo and was struggling to balance his body. We wanted ‘menu’ first, but looking at him and Dhaba, we dropped the idea of asking Menu. Instead, Jasmin parked the ball in his court, saying, “kya milega??”. The boy uttered 3 curry names which were available, hence justified our sensibility for not asking menu card J.Out of three curries, 2 of them were non-veg items and even in very very limited choices, we were thinking of what to order. Irritated Shravan interrupted the decision making process by asking the boy about wash room location. “go straight, then left and then right”, the boy answered without looking at Shravan. Shravan asked again, “kis taraf??”. Now that waiter fellow carefully looked at Shravan, observed him from head to toe, thought something for 5 sec and said, “sidha jake, left lelo aur fir right”. He thought, this guy does not know English, so he explained him in Hindi JJJ. The height of the situation was; the route explained was ending at the kitchenJJJ. Shravan just dropped the directional confusion and went behind the Dhaba wall. We ordered one non-veg and two veg curries with some chapattis. The same boy went to kitchen, prepared curries and came back to table. His journey from kitchen to our table looked like Lemon-Spoon Game. When the game finished, we got the prize in form of food and we started our post game activity. In the first bite itself, I realized that someone must have followed the waiter’s path for wash roomLLL. I hardly had 4-5 bites and I gave up. He had prepared all three curries in the same bowl with same ingredient, except for chicken and vegetables so everything tasted the same. With the huge disappointment, we left the food, paid at the counter and left the Dhaba with the feeling of; this must be result of Sukeshbhai’s curse for not taking him with us.
