As a kid who has been born and brought up in Kolkata I wasn’t
pretty good with Hindi. We had it as the third language in school.
Communicative Hindi was ok but that was mostly from watching TV and movies.
We spent a few weeks in London some time in 2006. My dad used
to stay in the UK as a practicing doctor after finishing his FRCS in Edinburgh.
He wanted to take us around places that he had lived and visiting during his
decade long stay.
For some reason we wanted to visit Southall. As a resident
there my dad had never visited Southall. We took a bus from the Victoria
Station and begun our Southall trip. We also were aiming at a nice Indian
Lunch.
We were at a restaurant called Chandni Chowk. I was being
extra smart and wanted to order something different. For some reason the Arbi
Masala sounded pretty fancy. I thought it would be some nice spicy Arabian
preparation. I have no idea why I thought an Indian restaurant would be serving
an Arabian preparation.
Guess what the waiter got for us – it was colocasia!! We call
it kochu in Bengali and I absolutely
hate it! That was a double facepalm moment!
Never ever in my life will I get even close to anything
called Arbi!!!