When in Rome...

... do as the Romans do! Tried and adopted! (whatever the cost)

When you're invited for dinner by an Indian family, you tend to expect the worst. When you enter the building lobby, the sight of a clean, marble floor reassures you; however, as you get into the elevator, the undefinable smell is not as comforting. Neither are the people you pass by in the corridor. When the door opens, you smile (basic manners!) to the guest and his wife (who doesn't smile as much - by the end of the evening you won't even know if she speaks english) and to their two children (who hardly notice you between their plate of food and the Indian soap opera on TV). Coming into the appartment, you keep smiling on the short way leading to the - only - sofa which you won't move from in the following couple of hours. When your host keeps talking about work with your husband, you just stare around: the host's wife keeping busy in the kitchen in front of you, frying small flatbreads for dinner, the son playing on his Nintendo DS, the daughter fascinated by the Indian soap operas (which fascinated me too: I was wondering what the plot could be between a tall, handsome Indian, a very pretty untouchable, two beggars, and some other beautiful woman. But believe me, it didn't look like the classical love triangle!). When dinner is served, you thank God the guest was thoughtful enough to put a spoon on your plate, and you try to eat as you have seen the children doing: tearing off a bit of flatbread and using it to grab some vegetable curry. When the guest's wife keeps serving you more food and you cannot eat anymore, and since the guest has appointed your husband "official communicator" earlier on, you find yourself shouting your husband to tell her to stop serving you more food! A couple of minutes after you're finished eating and you've been holding your greasy hands above your lap, afraid to stain anything, you realize there won't be any napkins and you should just rub your hands against each other (at the end of the dinner, you're told you can go to the bathroom to wash your hands - only to discover there isn't any soap!).

 After the last of the three (!) desserts, when you're offered a plate of cardamom pods and cloves, and explained they are used as a mouth freshener, you strategically pick only one cardamom pod (you don't like cloves) and as you start chewing it, finding the seeds are too spicy if you crunch them, you strategically take them out of the pod and swallow them all (it's a lot of them!) and keep the pod in a corner of your mouth until the party is over (not long after that). 

When you come home you actually realize it wasn't that bad at all, and eating vegetarian doesn't keep you from getting fat!