The driver couldn't figure out what that one was. "Food? Many hotels," blurted a confused taxi driver. To drive in his point, the tourist in his guttural singsong voice again shouted with animated gestures, "We want Mysore culturallll food!!!".The driver fell silent, staring at the north Indian guy shouting at him. He looked at the tourists who have hired his Qualis and then cast a melancholic glance towards the lit-up Mysore palace.

The cabbie, apparently, must have employed all the gray cells inside his tonsured head to decipher what the man was trying to tell. He had had people asking him to take them to Mysore palace, but never before had anyone directed him to take to Mysore cultural food.

He again looked at the kids and the lady who were among his passengers. They looked so weary and least bothered about what the man was shouting. They seemed to be looking for a place to crash and settle for the night.But the man, who probably had taken off from his native place with the sole aim of ‘experiencing a new culture’ was in no mood to relent. "Cultural food," he kept chanting at the driver.

The lady must have intervened, the man suddenly stopped chanting and all boarded the vehicle. The driver got into the vehicle with an added vigour.

As the Qualis took a U-turn and whizzed past us towards the direction of the Mysore bus terminal, I thought to myself: "What do you people usually have for dinner," would have produced better results.A wicked voice within me guffawed and shouted after the Qualis: "Parotta aur beef fry!"

(Nicked from blog item posted by Looney Tarantula, whose evaluation of self is worthy of being quoted in toto - 'Arrogant, self-centered, fatalistic, philosophical and quick-tempered. Obsessed with fame, immortality and making a quick buck.')