Band Baaj Buffet

True enough,as far as it goes. There was even a time,not so long ago,when it was possible that a wedding would introduce you to something new and inventive. Setting up restaurants was tough,a wedding catering business relatively easy; so even before there were affordable Thai restaurants,for example,there were affordable Thai caterers,and many of us tasted the basil-and-coconut combination for the first time at weddings in the ’90s.

But when was the last time you had a memorable dinner at a wedding? I haven’t for a long while,in spite of the inexcusable tendency among my friends to marry each other at regular intervals. And,on the whole,that isn’t surprising,Maqbool Bhai’s insistence notwithstanding. Because while weddings can be ruined if the caterer is off his game,eating at weddings is a nightmarish experience even if the food’s OK.

Look,it’s a bad idea to start off with. For some reason,a combination perhaps of our deep respect for both astrologers’ admonishments and NRI vacation timings,we like to hold weddings on the year’s coldest days. Half the time we won’t bother to have them inside,though,and given the spectacular tastelessness of most of our “banquet halls”,that’s excusable. But the two together mean that weddings are usually profoundly uncomfortable affairs. Everyone is dressed in ill-fitting finery that,if suitably ethnic,is draughty in surprising places. One steps gingerly on dewy grass muttering,under one’s breath,selections from Winnie the Pooh (“And nobody knows (Tiddely pom),How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),Are growing.”). If you think you can warm yourself up with a little alcohol,you wind up enhancing incipient frostbite in your right hand by holding a whisky-paani,two cubes of ice,for an extended period of time. And even if you jostle yourself a place around one of the — always painfully few and crowded — sigris or butane heaters,you wind up being forced to talk stiltedly to the kind of person who jostles to the front of crowds. And that’s if the dashed sigri doesn’t burn a hole in your aforementioned finery.

And,to top it all off,just as you are beginning to think that hellfire is way too warm a punishment for whoever invented winter weddings,the buffet is finally unveiled,and you eat something so hot and so spicy that your nervous system shuts down from the shock of transition. You can’t sit and eat,plate on lap,hunched over against the wind,like you really want to,unless you want to get mistaken for an elderly arthritic relative. So you wind up juggling a glass,a plate,a naan,a napkin,and multiple tedious conversations.

So,how does one manage? First,throw healthy-eating habits to the wind: pile up the snacks. Kebab and fish fingers and chaat are at least meant to be eaten standing up,unlike rogan josh. After all,it isn’t as if they’re less healthy than the actual dinner,which is likely to be nauseatingly gravy-heavy. The problem here,of course,is that you wind up chasing the only waiter with chicken tikkas around the lawn while fending off hordes of them trying to give you jalapeno and paneer-stuffed mushrooms or some other such abomination. Helpful tip: locate where the snacks are being made,track their course. Intercept them upstream,like the Chinese with the Brahmaputra. (I was recently at a wedding where even the snacks had clearly marked counters,a food innovation on a par with pre-sliced bread.)

When it comes to the main course,less is more. You never want to eat everything on offer; you wind up only liking one or two things. But you don’t want to stand in an endless,snaking line twice to get more of whatever is good,and if you’re the sort that cuts in with a dirty dish for seconds,newsflash: everyone hates you.

So the second tip: pick only those things that you already know are really worth eating. How will you know? If you eat at the same location twice,you know what to try: the biryani at the India International Centre,the roast leg of lamb at the Bengal Club. But if it’s a nondescript caterer,here’s the tip: make friends with the guys behind the buffet counter as they’re setting up. Ask them which of the dishes are requested by most of the wedding organisers. Chances are,those are the only things worth precious plate-space.

Third tip: disbelieve whatever the little cards in front say. Mirchi ka salan will not necessarily have peanuts. Moussaka may not necessarily have eggplant. Caterers outdo Bollywood when it comes to terrible remakes.

But the most useful tip of all: don’t bother to eat. Stop at a dhaba on the way home and have a seekh kebab roll. You’ll probably enjoy it more.
mihir.sharma@expressindia.com