Pick Your Poison

Yesterday we had a mini-Diwali celebration with a potluck dinner at La Casa Bhoj (LCB). Our contribution were Malini's 'paripu' vadas. Other entries included Chole (I encouraged folks to consume liberal quantities of this given that it was Diwali), couple of forms of rice; a dal; a combo of eggplant, potatoes, and salt; and dessert in the form of tapioca & semia kheer. The gracious host was dishing up "edible" chapatis (in the words of sivap). All folks were dressed up. Arjun & Abhishek have suddenly become fans of kurtas (or "jubba" as we call them) and were also in traditional outfits, willingly this time.

I had brought my camera and having borrowed Prem's flash spent quite some time experimenting with a 2-flash system. Despite my (& Prem's) best efforts I could not get the results I wanted and had to abandon plans of taking family portraits. Lathak and Prem sportingly modeled for the vast majority of my test shots while a number of others played cameo roles. I missed most of the conversation because of this fiddling - no doubt folks had intriguing and entertaining things to say.

We started eating and Harini (who had made the eggplant dish) was issuing warnings of high salt content. Siva, in his bid to be helpful, suggested that I mix the dish with rice and yogurt since this would, in his words, "make it almost tolerable." In retrospect, this comment, while innocent was not designed to strike the right chord with his spouse who was already feeling quite bad about the salty dish. As men are wont to do in such situations, Siva proceeded to dig himself a bigger hole by trying to explain and rationalize his comments. He even served himself a large helping of the dish to demonstrate his loyalty.

Then it was time for dessert and this time Harini was serving. She handed a large bowl of the kheer to Siva, who protested about the excessive quantity. Harini responded that she was giving him extra sugar to balance the extra salt that he had consumed. I was prompted to comment that, "This way, if the BP does not kill you, the sugar will." Considerable hilarity ensued and Rahul told Siva,"Pick your poison" to which I added, "and your spouse will make sure you get it." Harini expressed concern that this story was going provide more fodder just when she was finally putting the "topless cake" story behind her.

All in all, a pleasant time was had by all. Oddly, there was no election talk - maybe everybody is weary of the extended campaign. We did re-live some Seinfeld moments.

By now it was almost 10pm and kids were falling apart. P&V had made their exit a while ago and we were waiting for the host to finish his meal. The same could not be said of the others - at last check, MGD was still eating.