“बड़े-बड़े देशों में छोटी-छोटी बातें होती रहती हैं” 😄

Rajma Chawal

Three messages I want to convey through this incident :

1. It’s not always about the money 😊

2. The kind of blunders that happen sometimes and what could be lying behind the scene 😄

3. How awkward, being a minority or odd-one-out in a group can sometimes make you feel 😏

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I was meeting a colleagues-group of my husband for the first time. It was going to be a professional meeting. After finishing the first half of the task these people (including my husband) were doing, it was decided to have a group meeting at the canteen. All of us reached there in smaller groups or pairs. I was accompanied by my husband. As it was somewhat lunch time, I thought everyone would be having lunch there.

We were the first to reach the faculty compartment of the canteen. Three tables were lying there. Two of them were surrounded by respective sets of chairs and so were meant to sit and eat. The third one was supposed to be used for eating while standing. When we reached, we subconsciously noticed that the sit-and-eat tables were not clean, so we went and stood close to the other one. (I guess it’s not the culture there to call the canteen boy to clean the table as I noticed). We were involved in a discussion, when the remaining people came. One by one they started taking seats. The one leading the group came at the end holding a bunch of folders containing important papers that they were going to discuss about.

When he came, he saw the food remains lying on the table and indicated saying ‘Rajma..’ at a low but audible volume. He was wondering where to sit, keep the folders/papers and discuss. Few seconds later, he found a place to sit and carried on. Everybody got indulged in the task except me, as I was an outsider and couldn’t relate much. I went into some random thinking, waiting for my husband to get free. I was definitely ‘not’ thinking about Rajma, even though I am fond of it since childhood 😄 

Jokes apart, the blunder happened when all of a sudden, the leading person got struck with the thought of ordering eatables for everyone and decided to start with ‘me’ 😱 as I was sort of a guest there. I wasn’t expecting this and hence I went blank for a while. I was trying to find out what to say, when he said something like ‘be fast please, I have to ask everyone’. 

‘Rajma’ I said. 

He said ‘Rajma. Ok, Rajma Rice’ and moved on to next person who was no one else but my husband. He said, ‘I’ll just have some tea’. I was bit surprised to see that almost all following members of the group said tea or coffee, except few of them who went for fried rice and sandwich, that too in sharing. 

I felt so embarrassed and said ‘I am feeling like I have asked for too much’. No one replied to that but some people had heard me. One gentleman smiled at me in a way to say ‘It’s ok’. Another made space for me to sit. 

Coincidentally, the first order to reach the table was ‘Rajma Rice’ 🤦 making the situation even more awkward. I couldn’t have it because others were still waiting. I couldn’t offer it to anyone because important discussion was going on and I didn’t want to disturb. So I was silently wondering what to do, while having thoughts like ‘omg, my order alone would have costed more than other people’s orders combined’ and ‘omg, how can I be so ill-mannered’ etc 🙂

The gentleman who had made space for me to sit, asked me to have the meal. I said, ‘no Sir, it’s awkward’. He said, ‘please have it or it will get cold’. I offered it to him and the person sitting next to him. They said, ‘our fried rice is coming’. I hesitated but started having it slowly. After few minutes, my husband got free and shared few bites with me. Others’ orders had shown up too. Then was that I felt bit relieved. After the leading person got free, I had a short general communication with him and thanked him later. 

I checked with my husband whether it was too weird, but seems, thankfully, he didn’t bother much. May be I would not have felt that much embarrassed if I would have met them earlier. May be it was the vibes that made me feel at comfort with these people. And ‘not’ may be but true – it’s not always about the money 😊

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