Glutton Feast at Hotel Sowmya

Time: April/May 2000
Location : Hotel Sowmya, Race Course Road, Bangalore.

Like all final year engineering students, we were supposed to our academic projects in some institutions outside our college. Since my dad was working in National Aerospace Laboratories, it was easy for me and our group to secure a project there. Every Friday, we were supposed to go to NAL to update the guide with regard to the progress in the project, get our doubts clarified, and generally do some work related to the project.  This was the supposed agenda. The agenda was thrown out of the window, as soon as we reached NAL.  Religiously we used to go all the way to NAL; Wait and wait and wait till we get access to the only computer that we were allowed to access to compile and run our code :).  During this wait, the general banter about everything around us, including other 400 odd college students who were doing their projects at NAL gave us a sense of disgust about the “wait”.

So the conversation used to be like this

Myself : Lo inna est hotthu wait madodhu; nadiro hogona next week nodkondre aithu.. (how long to wait, we will go now and we will see next week)

Pachi : Correct kano.. hange maadona.. (correct we will do like that..)

Sridhar : Every week hinge aadre hengo.. project enu progress agthane illa.. (Every week its happening like this only, there is no progress in the project..)

Anup : …. (The muted member, generally wanted the best of both the worlds, so couldn’t take sides..)

So before he could open his mouth, his vote was already counted as “mounam sammathi lakshanam” and before long we were zipping on the then airport road, towards more homely and affordable locales of Malleshwaram, Majestic etc…

On One of such many Fridays, Hotel Sowmya fell prey to our barbaric gluttony. “Kallu thindu jeernisikolluva vayassu” (Literally means, the age at which the appetite so strong and huge that we could digest even stones) so any vegetarian restaurant was okay for us, as long as it was affordable.
The main gluttons:

Pachi and Myself : Both capable of devouring full meals fully J and still ask for some extra servings :)

The support roles:

Sridhar and Anup : They were moderate to poor eaters, who, I guess were feeling a bit awkward to share the dining table with us!!!

Full Meals(Unlimited) Rs 35 was what we saw on the menu card, and as with all college students,  unlimited food for limited money, was an invitation none of us (rather only Pachi and myself) could resist. “Naalk full meals” (4 full meals) was what I said, and when the plates arrived, the further proceedings were jaw dropping for more sane eaters.

After serving second round of 4 pooris the waiter brought rice.. the two mortals quickly had their bites of rice with rasam, and curd and washed off their hands.

The two gluttons weren’t finished though. When the waiter brought rice, I looked at him, smiled and said “poori”.. the same dialogues were repeated by pachi :).  With a slight twitch in the eyebrow, the waiter served 4 more pooris to me and my fellow glutton. Having devoured those 4, when he came back with rice, I asked “poori kooda unlimited alwa?”. (Poori is also served as much as I eat?) So fuming with anger, he went back, literally threw 4 more pooris in our plates :).  So 16 pooris each were stuffed by the two gluttons in the first course of that meal. We dint take the risk of asking for another serving of pooris, we turned our attention to rice.

Two more servings of rice with rasam and sambar, both the times the bowl in which rice was brought was emptied into our plates with the loudest of noise. The sole intention of the waiter serving us, to draw the attention of the owner, so that he could take our photographs and tag it on the wall near the bill counter!!

In between The two mortals who were watching all this ruthless batting (local lingo) from the other end of the table, exclaimed : “Lo saaku banro..est thinthira J” (Enough guys, how much you will eat??)

One final go at curd rice and we were ready to eat the desert (fruit salad with ice cream). When the waiter brought that to our table, he immediately exclaimed “Idhu limited sir!!” (This is not unlimited!!)

The effect our barbaric gluttony had on his psyche, Unimaginable!

Aaaahhhh finally the full meal was fully complete. The waiter who served was left high and dry for all his wrong guessing of what would we order next,  and for his “generous” serving we tipped him generously.

So that is the episode about our tryst with (Hotel) Sowmya!!!  This hotel is closed for good and demolished now, the reasons.. My take is that they went out of business, after a barrage of gluttons like us, savaged its resources (read food).  I guess even if he opens a new hotel, the menu card would surely miss one item………….. FULL MEALS(UNLIMITED)!!!