I have always believed
that knowledge is divine. I have a compulsive disorder (not medically proven,
but I think so) of finding out more about everything that I come across.
I like to know where my food comes from, where my
clothes come from, more about the places I like, background of people I like,
places I might never visit, new ways, new things, history, plans, etc. and for
all of this I have one stop – “Google” the god.
I believe my world will come crashing down if this search
engine stops working someday. When I come across something that I need to
Google, I can’t wait. My hands twitch and I start typing the key words on my
phone irrespective of the place I am (I love my Google more than a dinner date)
So here is something that makes me laugh and
embarrassed at the same time. But I found this occasion to share with you all.
I was travelling to Scandinavia, and it was my first
trip to Europe. I took a flight from Delhi at about two o clock at night and
reached Frankfurt at ten am IST. I was so late for my connection, that I didn’t
get a chance to even grab a coffee. I am one of those people who cannot eat or
sleep on board, so here I was, without anything for last eight hours.
When I got out of the airport in Bilund, the bus that
was supposed to take me to the city was about to leave. The next bus was after
two hours. Not used to the chilly wind of November, I preferred to take that
bus than to get some food and wait for two hours.
When I reached my hotel, it was about two pm GMT. So
basically I had only had some four bottles of water over last seventeen hours
and I don’t need to tell you that I was famished.
Hotel denied any sort of room service (and it was horribly
expensive) so I, along with a colleague decided to walk down to a restaurant.
The server who came to serve us didn’t know English,
and I didn’t know Danish. In some sign language and after seeking help of
another customer, I tried to explain my server that I was a strict vegetarian
and I didn’t take chicken, meat or fish. He nodded happily and pinpointed to a
spring roll in the menu card. I trusted his decision and ordered one.
When the dish arrived it had a lot of greens inside
the rolls and even on the sides. I happily finished mine within next two minutes, while my colleague
struggled to finish his chicken dish.
However, there was the name of the dish that had stuck
with me. The dish was called “kammusling grønt forårsrulle” which translated
into scalloped veg spring roll. I believed that scalloped vegetables was a a
method of cooking. But remember the Google lover in me? Sadly, my data plan
didn’t work on international roaming, so I waited to find more about origin of
the name scallop and about this dish when I reached hotel.
As soon as I reached hotel I Google’d the word. And
two minutes later I was running to the loo, trying to puke out everything I had
just consumed.
My colleague takes pleasure in narrating the incident
again and again, and he always ends it by saying that when it comes to food you
have already consumed, ignorance is indeed bliss he thought to himself as he saw me trying
my best to puke and crying over the new found knowledge.
For those who want to know what happened, the dish is
actually called scallop veg spring rolls, and scallop is type of sea food from
the oyster family whose meat I had just consumed.
( I found the picture on Google, it isn't exactly how it looked, but somewhat similar.)
