Bangla-Lunch

We’ve found a good source for quenching our hunger for native food this past week—the hospital “cafeteria.” The mess hall, as it’s also called, is a small building next to the inpatient wards (large rooms with about 20 beds each, one for men and one for women) with some picnic tables out front. As we don’t know exactly what’s on the menu, and the proprieter (a Bangla man with his two young sons) doesn’t speak English, figuring each other out is always an adventure. Not sure how to pantomime such things as “rice” and “vegetables”, we got some friends of ours to write down the Bangla words for some of the menu, so I put it into use.

I walk into the shop. “Mach bhat? One? Cha?” (Fish and rice for one? Tea?)

“Mach bhat?” he replies.

“Yes.”

I walk outside and sit down at the picnic table. That seems to have gone well. There’s a bunch of smiles inside the shop, presumably because it’s funny that I’m trying out this little experiment. A couple minutes later, the younger of the two boys working at the mess comes out to me.

“Machka bhat?” he asks. Hmm, I thought we had this figured out already. The words sound a bit different, but I think we’re talking about the same thing.

“Mach bhat.” I confirm.

Some expression of understanding dawns on his face, and he runs back inside yelling “Machka bhat!” with a tone of triumph. I smile and wonder what my plate will actually contain. Sure enough, in a few minutes, I get a plate of rice, and two little bowls of fish (that is, fish curry) and veggies (that is, veggie curry). A small miracle has taken place. The tea is tremendous, and the fingers of our right hand are stained yellow because there are no utensils, and eating with the left hand is considered “unclean”. Smiles all around and I’m out the door with a tasty lunch and a great cultural moment for 44 Taka (60 cents).