Platefuls for Bangla, and no sour dish

Little did one realise that the flicker was a precursor of the dodgy message that the eating joint’s owner, busy hosting the entire Bangladesh World Cup team, conveyed to us. “Wait till the cricketers finish. In case there’s something left, you get to eat,” she said matter of factly.

After eyeing several rice plates disappear, aromatic daal reaching the nostrils but not a centimeter below it and gauging the taste of the thick brown mutton curry by numerous repeat orders came the ultimate anti-climax. An apologetic tone informed us that the wait was futile as the vessels in the kitchen were empty.

That just meant another set of Indians were left high and dry by a bunch of hungry cricketers from Bangladesh.

Earlier, while one waited in the breezy balcony with the optimism of reaching the table and the general pessimism of the usual cricket discussion about the happening in Mumbai one couldn’t help but draw conclusions from the sight of the team eating together inside.

The loud but relaxed dinner talk, plates being passed across tables and someone suddenly bursting into a high pitched Bangla song had one contemplating that if our discussion about the senior versus junior problem back home was so out of place.

Post-dinner one of the babies of the Bangladesh team walks across from the counter with two glasses of milk and hands one to Rafiquebhai, and seeing the big smile on the senior pro’s face presents a perfect frame for a happy family portrait. It’s a picture which confirms that the strict age hierarchy isn’t quite a general sub-continent phenomenon.

By the time one returned to the hotel after Pizza Hut saved the day, the news about coach Greg Chappell’s tell-all interview had reached the West Indian shores and so had the stink of the mess back home.

Food hunting, in general, during the Good Friday break at the World Cup has been educational. During lunch time one drifts towards the fruit market and seeing a biggish shop overtly encroaching on the footpath one is sure about the Indian roots of the owner. The assessment is spot on as one spots the familiar features of the brown man behind the counter. He fishes out a bunch of miniature bananas and says how the variety was shipped across the sea by the early Indians during the last century.

“You guys call them ‘iliachi’ kela and it’s very rare here,” he informs to justify the exorbitant price tag.

The congested fruit market, like Georgetown in general, has a rural India feel to it. The city where the recently constructed four-storied hotel next to the stadium is the tallest. It has a relaxed pace where the old couple sit on park benches watching kids play cricket and horse carts meant to transport goods double as an alternative public transport.

April is also the month when the Indian influence on Guyana is hard to miss. Along with the bananas the early sugarcane workers from Uttar Pradesh brought along their passion for kite-flying to Guyana. A local informs how our early departure to Grenada will make us miss the Easter day colourful sky. “Everyone heads for the beach front and there it’s kite carnival everywhere,” he informs.

For someone who has had first-hand experience of the kite crazies from Lucknow and stayed in Gujarat long enough to see Sankrant day colourful sky, a bout of nostalgia was expected.

Having the peeled banana in one hand and flying the kite with another, one felt at home. In cricket circles this April in India kite flying and a feel of the banana skin are two things that are in vogue.