Lemon juice, especially with sugar and a pinch of salt
mixed with cold soda, was one of my favourites during my college days. In fact, there was not a single day on which
I had not tasted the same in a nearby shop.
But over the years my liking for lemon juice came down. Today I don’t relish it as much as I used to
during my college days.
In 1996 when I moved to Ahmedabad, on my first day my roommates took me out for dinner. Growing up in a small city, in a middle-class family, I didn’t have any experience of dining in big restaurants. All my restaurant visits prior to this were to small ones where we had south Indian varieties like ‘masala dosa’, ‘idli-vada’ etc. But the dinner that my roommates hosted was in Hotel Topaz, a reasonably big north Indian restaurant near IIM. There were many ‘firsts’ during this occasion – first dinner with my roommates, first dinner in a big restaurant, a north Indian meal for the first time, tasting ‘tandoori roti’ for the first time and so on. At the end, a small bowl of water with a piece of lemon was kept in front of us. I was wondering if I was supposed to squeeze the lemon and drink. But I didn’t understand why the water was lukewarm. Luckily, before I could squeeze the lemon and drink, my roommates started using it and I got to know it!
In 1998 I moved to Tumkur. Within a few days of my joining SIT, my cousin Anil came to Bangalore on an official visit. I went to Bangalore to meet him. That day he had an appointment with a senior manager of a company. Though I was reluctant to join him, he insisted that I accompany him. He said, ‘we are not discussing anything confidential and the person I am meeting is a senior gentleman who is a very nice person’. I agreed. The meeting was in a club. After the initial chit-chat when they both got into business discussion, I started flipping through a magazine kept there. In between, our guest asked, ‘shall we order something?’ Turning to me he asked, ‘shall I order something hot for you?’. I said yes. Shocked, Anil turned towards me and whispered, ‘Do you know what he meant by hot?’, I said, ‘Yes, coffee or tea’. Listening to this, with a smile on his face, our host told me, ‘Sorry, I don’t think they offer coffee or tea here’. Finally, I ended up ordering lemon juice!’’
A few years later a senior executive from a company came to my institute as visiting faculty. My director asked me to accompany him for dinner. When I reached the guest house, he told me, ‘First let us have a drink, then we will go for dinner. Which is the best bar in Tumkur?’. I said, ‘I have no idea’. He said, ‘No problem, let us find out’. Thus, a teetotaler, who had no idea about bars in Tumkur, along with a person who had no idea about anything in Tumkur set off in search of a good bar! After passing through a couple of them, when we reached in front of a particular bar, my guest felt that it was decent enough for his standards. So, we went in. He started going through the menu. For a while, I felt as if the guest was hosting the host. He ordered something of his choice, and I had to settle down with – yes, you guessed it right – the lemon juice!
