Morning Goli

A short story

Leaving early for work meant that Bhagya could not pack a tiffin at the hostel. During the bus ride, she started debating with herself whether to spend money from her pocket to eat at a restaurant or skip having breakfast. That’s when she remembered what her senior, Chikkanna Sir had advised her on the morning she had first reported for duty.

‘Always have a filling breakfast before coming to work because we never know what comes next.’

It was almost a year since that day and she now had enough evidence to agree with Chikkanna Sir.

When she got off the bus at her stop, it was her hunger that made her stand and stare at the other side of the road.

Udupi Grand

It was an idli-dosa restaurant for the gentry. She had avoided going there all these months.

As a child, when Bhagya would point to a ‘big restaurant’ and ask her father to take them there, he would refuse saying, ‘but that’s for the gentry’. Her father knew three or four words in English and gentry was one of them. She never asked him who this gentry was. She just knew it was not them.

Udupi Grand was an imposing presence in a congested intersection. It had a large signage, a short flight of stairs that led to a wide entrance and she could see that the place was full of people seated at tables. There were cars and bikes parked in the front. The restaurant had security guards, serving staff and managers who were all dressed in uniform.

Bhagya took a moment to see if her own attire was in order. Her shoes were polished, her uniform was ironed and the jacket was zipped up to protect her from the morning chill. Her hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head and wrapped within a net. She carried a brown coloured backpack that went with her uniform.

Okay, fine

As she walked up the stairs, Bhagya realized it was a self-service restaurant. Standing at the  cashier’s counter, she glanced upon the snacks they had displayed wrapped in a film of plastic. Bhagya spotted a plate of goli baje on the counter and instantly her mouth began to water. This again took her back to her childhood in the small town. Whenever her father took them out to eat, this was an obvious choice for her. She also wondered why everyone is not having this and only this.  

Bhagya picked up the plate of hot goli baje from the serving counter and eagerly found an empty table for herself. She was pleased to have the plate of perfectly round golis in front of her but that fork on her plate bothered her. She had not eaten food using a fork before this but she told herself that she was in the big city now and had to learn its ways. Bhagya pressed the fork right in the middle of a perfectly round goli but its crust was harder than she expected making the fork slip and the goli pop out of her plate! She gasped and her eyes followed the goli as it rolled between other people’s feet until she lost sight of it. Bhagya sheepishly looked around and realized that no one else had noticed as they were all busy having their own breakfast. She was just relieved that the goli did not land on anyone else’s table.

But that one goli was worth 10 rupees!

She started to feel that she should quickly eat with her hands now and be done with it.

And just then, a man came over and stood in front of her.

‘Anyone coming here?’ he asked in Kannada pointing to the empty chairs opposite to her.

Bhagya shook her head sideways.

The man and his wife sat down with their own plates of idli-sambar. Bhagya noticed that they held a fork and a spoon in each hand as they got busy eating.  

Bhagya looked at the fork in her hand and wondered if she should she get herself a spoon as well.

Oh cutlery in both hands? Now that would be proper gentry behaviour!

She shuddered.

Bhagya was confused now and she also realized she was getting late. She surely didn’t want to make any more blunders. So she took the fork in her right hand went gently at the goli while using her left hand to lightly hold the goli from popping out of her plate. Aah! She then dipped that half goli into the bowl of chutney and took the fork to her mouth. Finally!  

Bhagya kept her head down and repeated the same technique of her left hand supporting the goli while she gently cut them open with the fork using her right hand. She knew she was not doing it right but having the golis while they were still hot seemed more important to her.

After she finished, she picked up a glass of coffee from the serving counter and came back to her seat. She now sat in her usual upright posture and looked ahead as she sipped from the steel glass.

What a relief that there’s only one way to drink coffee – whether we are gentry or not!

She felt glad that she had stopped for breakfast at Udupi Grand.

On finishing the coffee, Bhagya took out the handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her mouth and hands. She then picked up her backpack and unhurriedly walked out of the restaurant, down the stairs and onto the street outside.

She now began to feel like a policewoman again.