Saturday, January 24, 2009

MTR, resembles a refugee camp!

Yesterday I visited MTR along with my uncle and cousin to have lunch . Just in accordance with Murphy's law we reached there bingo during the 45 minutes interval between 2.45pm and 3.30pm. Since it was only 20 minutes to reopen, we thought we'll spend time in the adjacent MTR sandwich and icecream parlor helping ourselves with some pastries and fruit juices. At 3.30 we decided to go to MTR to have evening snacks and this is what we saw infront of the closed doors of Mavalli-Tiffin-Rooms.


And once gates opened, people started rushing inside to occupy the ground floor and first floor tables. In no time the waiting hall in the first floor was crowded and ground was no different. See the picture of the waiting hall below.

Overcrowded, hungry people, people waiting for their name to be called to get food reminded me of refugee camps I had watched on TV. We were one of the first to get table reserved so comfortably got a place. But not all were lucky. We were sitting close to the doorway and I closely watched the people entering the dining hall after their names were called by the 'commanding officer' at the entrance who allots tables. I could distinctly notice a victory smile on almost everyone's face whenever they were let inside. There was an incident that one senior citizen was asked to change tables a couple of times by the 'commanding officer' and the old man really got irritated and left the place without eating anything. I pity him. It was really disgusting the way people were fighting to find a place inside.

I don't understand this: on a Saturday afternoon at 3.30 one has to wait once outside the gate to be openend and once inside the waiting hall for mere snacks - dosa, idli, coffe which will be served under not so great ambience (ambience at MTR is neither modern nor retro, its just has been left as it was few decades back 'coz there was no need to change anything as there are enough maniacs to keep the MTR hype going), by not so warm attendants, for not so reasonable costs and which anyway doesn't taste any divine. The food at MTR tastes good but then there are so many other places in bangalore, even in and around MTR where you get similar or better food. Since taste is subjective, there are these maniacs and fundamentalists claiming that taste at MTR is the superior most. With all due respect to the inventors of Rava Idli (MTR invented rava idli when the country was facing shortage of rice which was the main ingredient of the regular idli), I deny that claim. It definitely doesn't taste divine to attract this kind of attention. As my cousin correctly pointed out... "jana maruLo, jaatrhe maruLo"...

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