Taco With My Sambar Please? Friday at Planet Yumm

No kidding, they even have a Malaysian guy serving roti canai and frankies.*

I am inside the Ascendas corporate office here in Chennai at Planet Yumm. The temperature outside is a balmy 40C, and inside the interior of this (think Plano Texas) building is a comfortable 60F. I have just sipped down a frozen Frazzio™, coffee flavored of course. Starbucks frappacino™ be warned- this sugary goodness will beat the caffeine out of any US coffee chain.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry while typing on my free wifi. There’s girls in jeans, a DKNY t-shirt. I think- yes- that young man is wearing a heavy metal t-shirt.

Next to the roti place is your garden-variety Indian tali served on banana leaf and right next door to the noodle shop is a special seating area where people serve your food. Hold your breath, a KFC opens next month.

I spent the better part of my life believing that Indians hated people like me, born in the US, speaking only English and when I speak of development, I don’t mean software, I mean dealing with poverty. But now I know they were just jealous. I, on the other hand, have spent the better part of my life loving granola and organic fresh produce, while all this time, these guys wanted fried chicken and the market-driven right to a heart attack ala the colonels secret recipe™.

Or am just missing the true meaning of Christmas? Let’s check off our list…

This food court in any other Bellevue (WA that is) would be filled with Indians. CHECK

In December there may even be a tree with lights. EX (no tree—it is only May)

There would be families and kids and other Indians sweeping the floors. CHECK

There would be a rash of VPL (ask Anju re: this one). CHECK

There would be a group of older men wearing lungis. EX (no lungis at the mall in WA)

Last but not least, one guy will always be there wearing a Hawaiin shirt. CHECK

4 out of 6…. hmmm

Perhaps my brand of development is not the wave of the future and I have spent my life in vain. The omnipresent food court, however, is the new multiculturalism; the modern marvel of international exchange. The height of progress in this redundantly ‘global’ world.

*For the uninitiated a roti in the Malaysian sense is a flat, yummy buttery bread made from butter and I think a little bit of flour. The canai (pronounced chanai- sound familiar?) is a chicken or potato curry from Malaysian street vendor fame ala Tamilian immigrants to the Southeast Asian peninsula. The Frankie is your garden-variety Indian burrito made with a roti and stuffed with greasy goodness- alloo, gobi, paneer etc.