Anatomy of an alapparai

If finding a seat in crowded cafeteria is an art, I am Sam Anderson of it. Kaadhal Kondenla Dhanushku kuda kadisi rowla seat kedachirum, but I would often roam the length and breadth of the food court and still wouldn’t find a solitary seat. It’s even worse when I go with friends as I would often end up with the task of finding seats for all of us. If by some miracle, I do manage to find a couple of seats, it seldom lasts long. Every alternate second, someone or other will come and ask if anyone is coming to the table I am holding for my friends. It makes me wonder, why would people ask that question? Unless I carry a lunchbox like Mayabazar Ranga rao, it would make little sense for a single person to hog a whole table, right? And it’s not that people are that dumb, not to notice my single Tupperware dabba, sitting on the table and the only possible explanation could be I am waiting/holding the place for someone else. Unless they may think that, a single person sitting alone on a table, with unopened lunch box, has no other job, but to watch other people eat, by blocking a whole table for himself, I don’t see any logical explanation to those queries. Some are even brilliant in their approach. They would simply ask for the chairs for their own table and not for the entire table. As if, their group are having elai poatu soru and my guys are going buffet.

Adichi pudichi if you manage to get a table, the next step would put Hercules tasks to shame. Oru sila tableslaam paatha, you may be tempted to check out the person who was using it prior, to ask if his parents ever thought them how to eat on their own. There would be several designs and patterns in which food would’ve been spilled that, there wouldn’t be a single area untouched by their leftovers. Platela thaan saptangala, illa “mann soru” pola “table soru” nu edachum start panitangala nu doubtay varum. Catching the attention of the cleaning crew in a crowded food court is actually nothing short of the twelve tasks of Hercules and could very well be made the thirteenth one. If it’s a pain to catch a table, it’s a bigger pain when you are half way into lunch. There would be “scouts” on reconnaissance missions like border patrol teams, who would keep staring at your plate and walk around your table, literally trying to be on your face, telepathically pushing you out the moment the last morsel makes its way into your mouth. Some would even force their dabba on vacant portion of the table, as if they are putting thundu to reserve their seat in moffusil bus.

Rulesay illatha edathuku evanda food “court” nu per vachathu!!