And so -- This continues to be a marathon wedding season in my friends circle. I received a mail from a good and very humorous friend of four odd years about getting betrothed to his lady love who hails from Erode.

<>Alert***********Even at the risk of writing an infinitesimally small post I decided to blog this so as to record this incident for any future “small talk” and also for posterity sakes*********** Alert!<>

Erode brings back very fond memories of a trip I once took with my mom on one of the South bound Indian trains. Once the train halted at Erode my mom (we were both seated in the side seat) ordered "vegetarian" lunch for the two of us from a platform vendor. He had just two parcels in his hand and seemed as eager to part with it as Abhinav Bindra would with his “Gold”. After much introspection (and maybe after seeing me already hogging on a plate of Samosas) he decided my mom and I could do without dinner and refused to sell it to us. We couldn't find another vendor and soon the train started moving slowly .Suddenly this guy comes out of nowhere and offers the parcels , grabs the money from my mom's hand and fades into oblivion as the train gains momentum.
My mom and I didn't give this awkward behavior much thought until we opened our parcels and saw "fresh" vegetarian food staring right at us -- Yes, Fish with its eyes full (wide) open and body half cooked :)