Yuktahaar- Appetite's Best Friend

I never knew what delicious food was until I started eating in Yuktahaar, and then it was too late to know. Well, I do not exactly believe in the crap I wrote in the previous line but I find it funny, so I put it there and let it remain there in the final draft of this piece of writing.

Now that I've mentioned that I eat in Yuktahaar, you must have speculated that it is one place where food is served. People from IIIT would know what I am talking about, but for those not familiar with the campus, I'd state that it is one of the four messes in our college. The food is really cheap ( at least in terms of the amount they charge us per meal ) and you have to sit on the floor and eat, not to mention that people who eat there are supposed to wash the dishes themselves. How's that for economy? In fact, one of my companions who eats in Yuktahaar – Mayank Juneja – once suggested, “Dude, since we wash the dishes daily, why don't we seriously consider working here, at least we won't be paying for our meals.” My reply was, “Seriously chum. We could use the money too.”

Now that I've disclosed the royal treatment of the people who eat there, I better not conceal the fact that people love the place so much that there's always a mile long queue for chapatis. I never used to eat rice before, but rice and I are two inseparable lovers now. And Murphy's law applies here as well: the more the haste you're in, the longer the queue is and the slower it moves. The love for the place doesn't simply end there : there's another half a mile queue at the sinks to wash the dishes. It is an ultimate test of one's patience. Once my patience was really being put to a tough test and I blurted out, “ I can stand for an hour in a queue to get a blasted chapati but I cannot stand in this queue for 5 minutes to wash the goddamned dishes.” However the benevolent mother nature made me wait for another 10 minutes and I passed the test. I've grown a lot more patient since Yuktahaar became a part of my life. After that incident even the petty insolent kid who stuck a pencil in my eye failed to get on my nerves.

Once someone asked me if the cooks in Yuktahaar were good. My reply was, “ Are you kidding? They sure know how to prepare something fit for human consumption by means of heat.” Ask anyone who eats there and he will testify the truth of my statement. I must tell you that it is not only good food that is served there, for it is one such place where you learn while you eat. Don't ask me what it means: I leave the interpretation as an exercise left to the reader.

There are quite a few quotes that adorn the walls of the temple of diet. I'll list a few of them with my remarks. Don't hate me, I'm not being judgmental- I'm merely putting myself in the shoes of a common man - who ate there once - and stating his observations subjectively.

Quote 1: “Enjoy health not taste.”
Remarks: “ You've ensured the second conjecture. But what about the first?”

Quote 2: “Wasting food is a sin, not allowed here.”
Remarks: “What's that steel bucket with all the waste food doing there. Did you not put that there? Irony! ”

Quote 3: “Please take a maximum of 3 chapatis if queue is present.”
Remarks: “ Can anyone not see the queue? Or is it that I'm hallucinating all these people standing one behind the other?”

Quote 4: “ The remedy of a disease is the kitchen, not the hospital.”
Remarks: “Kiss my a**.”

I love Yuktahaar- I eat there all the time. Everyone loves Raymond. Everyone loves Yuktahaar. Noticed the analogy? People have their terms of endearment to refer to Yuktahaar, some call it Muktahaar and some call it Kuttahaar. In fact there's a community dedicated to Yuktahaar on Orkut . Please join it and show that you are as much in love with it as everyone else it.

Everyone should eat in Yuktahaar at least once, after all happiness is not everything.