As Fast as a Ferrari

Odai stretched his legs and smoothed out his suit before settling into the driving seat of his vehicle. Orange wasn’t his favourite colour, he’d have rather driven a blue – green spitfire combo but then the choice didn’t really lie with him. He was sure even Lewis Hamilton (he found it easier breaking that up to Huh - mill – tone) never thought of these minor hiccups on race day. Having comfortably seated himself, he looked around to see a sea of faces and a lot more legs raining down the track moving around purposefully in varying directions. Everyone had some place to be before the race started.  Odai blushed every time a fan stopped, smiled and waved at him. It must have been his nerves or their excitement that their wishes sounded like an alien language, though accompanied by a smile so he just assumed them to be wishes. The varying moods across the other drivers could be pinned down to the rainbow spectrum. From the curly haired one couple of paces behind with his flushed red cheeks while another one beside him seemed deep in concentration having a tough time chewing something and the violet aura of frustrating hard work underlined his guess. Odai knew, today was the day he was going to prove it to everyone that he had it in him to be racing for Bahrain in the Grand Prix someday. He closed his eyes for a moment and rushing through came the images of his brother Ali holding him into the winds as their speedboat sped towards Hawar Islands on a family picnic. His eyes had watered and each strand of hair had felt alive at that moment. He wished for that same experience now with him tearing down into the winds and maybe fast enough to fly with them.

The next few minutes seemed to have fallen into a void for the next thing he knew, he was gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could, swerving around as he negotiated the crooked turns the track offered. His feet pressed downwards as hard as he could, try to pull every bit of muscle power his vehicle could muster. The sea of faces were a blur ,  the wheels and the track seemed to have rubbed each other the wrong way as his ride became bumpier than he expected, but all these issues were trivial in his pursuit of greater purpose – A Bahraini as the world’s fastest driver. Everything else was a blur, but not the advertising. Persistence of vision is something sponsors understood real well and made sure that repeating the same image over a distance ensured whatever the speed, you still managed to figure out that Cornelius Rooster was pecking for you on behalf of Kelloggs and the smiling red cow had to be “La Vache qui rit”. Odai simply pressed harder and focussed on completing this race. Along the turn, he let his eyes off the track for a split second, distracted by the light bouncing off a couple of pairs of ripe melons, but quickly managed to get his vehicle back on track. He could do without such distractions till the end of the race.

He knew he was doing well on pace for he hadn’t spotted another competitor for a while now after a brief tussle with the curly haired boy, a couple of corners before. He had managed to squeeze through to the front for a few minutes before Odai boxed him into a corner, which probably put him under high duress for he went off course at the next corner, allowing Odai to retain his pole position. The Bahrain national anthem was now ringing in Odai’s ears and he seemed very pleased with his performance today, yaani he was as fast as a Ferrari. Faster and faster he urged the car, to speeds he hadn’t been confident to hit in earlier runs.  Everything seemed perfect today till that last corner.  To his horror, the vehicle was no longer responding to his driving. He tried hitting the brakes hoping he could bring it back to manageable speeds and take the turn but the monster wouldn’t listen to brakes or the steering wheel.  He was headed straight towards the stands. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable with a prayer on his lip. Soon after a sharp jerk, he felt serenity and calmness being restored to his universe. The car had finally come to a halt. He closed his eyes even tighter not wanting to see the mayhem and destruction he had brought upon. Soon he felt a tug pulling him into the sky. He ignored it but soon found himself lifted into the air. He could hear voices, familiar and unfamiliar ones growing louder. He opened his eyes when he heard his mom’s voice utter, “Alhamdulillah, once in that trolley car, he is in his own world and doesn’t disturb with the shopping. Odai, look who we bumped into at Zulu Supermarket.”













































 

Food Bites – A Hitch hikers guide to the Milky Way Restaurant

The entrance looks like a disco or a shady motel

Having finished with Mrs Vadelal’s kitty party at La Resort International, Ursa Aurora and I decided to check out Shrewd Man and Shahking’s latest themed restaurant titled “Milky Way” that promises an out of the world experience. The first thing you notice about the décor is its “Avatar”ish feel with glow-as-you-step paths, neon-lit fibre trees and the gurgling of springs pierced by the cries of Pterosaurs adding to the ambience. The entrance would have you confused for a disco or a seedy motel for a few minutes but gets better once you step in.  Planet shaped lamps are a nice touch though people above six feet might have to play the role of Hunchback of Notre Dame to perfection here.

Our gastronaut (the waiters here clearly go by a fancier job description) ushers my partner to her seat, while I decide to visit the washroom. It is tough to miss it with motorised owls hooting atop a wooden sign glowing with the words “Nature Calls” towards one corner. I had half expected to see a board saying “Where No Man has gone before” but a plain Louboutin helped me choose the right door.

Back to the table and my partner is already scanning the menu on the touch screens placed in front of each seat. The drinks menu is pretty exotic and you have varying quantities from test tube size to Titanic. Having picked 2 cocktails under the Titanic category, I decided to go for the Bermuda Triangles as starters while my partner was in the mood for south Indian cuisine and picked a plate of UFOs which came in real quick with chutney and sambhar saucers.  Cute!

Our gastronaut soon walked in with tall glasses for our cocktails but I was in for a shock when he placed it on the table. 3/4th of the space was taken by a huge ice block shaped as an iceberg and a couple of sips later; I had downed my entire cocktail. While the drink was great, the quantity makes me sink its rating to the level of the actual Titanic.

Cutlery could have been more imaginative

If it wasn’t any worse, my Bermuda Triangles turned out to be samosas with no filling. I should have been suspicious when the calorie count on the dish was abnormally low. Main course had a variety of eccentric dishes including the peace meal which consisted of coffee (ko’fi) and naan (a type of Indian bread) supposedly pretty popular in Central Pangaea. Steering away to the conventional in this highly unconventional menu, I picked the Spockghetti with Picardy sauce while my partner decided to stick to South Indian with the Na’avi dosa (dosa made with blue batter with handful of herbs and spices for additional flavouring). Clearly you needed to thank your stars to get the dishes right here. Having asked the gastronaut to pack the left overs of my spockghetti in a kling-on wrapper for my hubby, I decided to utilise my calories credit in the dessert section. It was a tough one between “Chand ka tukda” and Orion Milkshake, while my partner picked the Chef’s special of “Chewbaklawa” and true to its name; we made intelligible conversation while her tongue wrestled with the dessert.

After having successfully completed this meal with a drink, a starter, main course and dessert each, I read the bill twice to make sure I had counted the right number of zeros. Guaranteeing me an out of the world experience didn’t have to include astronomical prices and there was no way I’d find the mint wrapping called “Apollo 11” cute or funny after the exorbitant prices. Though seemingly out of place is the service charge at a fixed rate of 42 bucks.

We decided to touch base with these IIM-C (Institute of Intelligent Marketing Chefs) grads to understand what were the reasons and the concepts behind leaving their foreign MNC postings to start a chain of restaurants back home.

“We conducted a study in the market and there was a niche target segment for our offering. The central talking point of all treats (conservatively speaking) is how high the bill was. Also in a world where we want more than we need, 400+ channels for the price of 200, buy 2 shirts and get 11 free, we figured by reducing quantities, customers would get a chance to taste more varieties. After all, Customer is King. So taking these two factors into due consideration, we charge astronomical prices and have reduced our quantities in each serving.”

Clearly we weren’t the target audience for this place. So if you are Jason or any of the Argonauts, head to the Milky Way for the royal fleece.

Signing off,
Epi Kurian.