*snicker at smacker*

The other night I was going through the Metroplus Food Guide of Chennai. I knew almost all the places and very few I had actually sampled. Many reasons for the unvisited - driven away by the yuppiness, expelled by the prices, shaken off by horrible stories of service, banished by tags such as Pure Veg and Health Food or simply cause it’s not in an area I fancy.

Perusing, I figured them ambience out in my head and scrawled numbers and names and addresses for better pocket days. And this list I know is doomed from its inception. Cause I am going to bust money on mexican chicken cheese burgers at Kenzos, a beer (I always find myself stuck with a bike to take home so...just an a will do) and platters of oil-leak-sprung kebabs at Bike & Barrel, or crumb fried chicken and hot fudge brownie at Sparky’s, chocolate mint cake at Mocha, chicken stroganoff and mint ice cream and mint soda pop at Casa Picola, or chocolate truffles at Satyam laid hands on by braving lecherous crotch-rubbing men, kids who love to push and squeal with the surge, aunties with chiffon sarees gristling against my skin and all for gooey chocolate. Tis worth it! Or else I’d be with ranji at Noodle House over steamed rice and spicy chicken gravy, or coffee world and their really real and addictively aromatic coffees, or at karpagambal mess embedding my fingers in malli poo kinda idlis and swiping the yellowing banana leaf off its gobsmakcing saambar or scraping kapaleeshwar temple’ well-renowned puli sadham out of a dhonai. Note how the tummy budget shrinks.

Well, that’s the way of my pocket and that’s where the tongue leads...to tried and tested satisfaction. Utterly conditioned by these places and having figured out ways of my shrinking wallet, my taste buds have grown conservative. But they aint dogmatic... Yet. So a lil conscious overworking of the glands will unloosen legs towards a new destination.

My tongue I must say is quite a fretter...uneasily settling in the mouth, constantly lapping and tickling roof in annoyed anticipation, oozing skepticism on what’s to come. Keeping it still is quite a task. “Can I have a fresh lime soda please?” The salinity and lime gives it a lashing. In the meanwhile I scan, peering into the menu almost expecting a culinary hole to slide down. While marinating in the salt my tongue gives sudden upstarts as I skim over loving words...cheese, spice, jalapenos, deep fried, tangy, curried, sauteed, chilli, garlic, ginger, cloves, spring onions, melting hot jacket potato, vendaka, broccoli, cream of something soup, sour cream, mayo, beer batter, tamarind paste, vanjaram, kaadai and a bunch of other stuff. I stick by my decision to try the untried and clamp it shut, grind my teeth giving myslef cheek bites and order.

If I could give my tongue a cigarette I’m sure it’ll grab the opportunity, walk out of my mouth, envelope the tobaco and puff away while marching up and down in anxiety. Breaking conditioning is hard for my tongue too. But it has to understand it belongs to me. And it is not me. So I throw it a scorching look (all internally of course). And while it sulks, people watching, spacing out, a book, or a TV with set top box has me quite occupied.

New food arrives. I am pathetic at introductions. This piping hot something or bledy cold somethinger or neither nothinger greets my glum tongue with thrusts of spoons or scooped fingers and more often than not they always click and have a ball of a time. “I told you so...I know what you like. I know what’s good for you.” Am I a tyrant? Or is my tongue just indulging me having had an understanding with my brain?

And then of course that slip of paper with the Slurp List is doomed otherwise also. We all know all that is scrawled must crawl away.