Memory Lane

Plain tea with ‘pol rotti and lunumiris’!

From the Five-star to the no-star, you name it and we have been there. No matter who says what, I still think that campus food is great, not that I like the taste of it much, but I loved the time I spent eating it with my friends.

And I can still remember how the most awful lunch packets literally disappear in front of our own eyes, before some of us could even manage to get a morsed in. It’s no different with Anuki. After a hard day’s work, our canteen lunumiris and pol rotti is our way of ‘munching away’!

Sometimes we had breakfast there - lunumiris and pol rotti with tea. And let me tell you it tastes better than the five star cuisine. Yesterday I went to the canteenjust, about to drop dead out of sheer starvation. When I got there, thankfully, there was an array of food stuff, some of them incomprehensible.

I remember the other day we went to the canteen and there Anuki making a face at a particular item. “Lunumiris in a doughnut?” I heard her query. When I followed her gaze I realized that the doughnut like bun was cut into half and lunumiris was stuffed inside. We both looked at each other and made faces.

But this particular day I went to the canteen alone, because Anuki was still busy with something or the other. And they had run out of lunumiris! Oh crap, what now? How am I to eat Ala rotty without lunumiris. Usually only the pol rotty comes with the lunumiris but I asked for lunumiris whenever I eat Ala rotty as well. I would have an Ala rotty without lunumiris.

Tough luck, they have run out of ala rotty too. They explained that a new paste of lunumiris was in the making but would take a few minutes. But I was soooo hungry, and couldn’t wait any longer. Just then my eyes caught the sight of the hybrid of lunumiris-doughnut. Well it definitely looked like a doughnut without the chocolate syrup on top.

But then again what’s the difference between a doughnut stripped of its chocolate syrup and an ulundu wade. Well the worst thing that could happen is that it would be inedible and I would have to throw it away. But I decided to take the risk since I didn’t want to starve to death. I bought one for myself and a pol rotty for Anuki.

I decided to eat the lunumiris doughnut while I waited for the lunumiris for Anuki’s doughnut. I eased myself on to a chair and took an experimental bite of the lunumiris doughnut. It did not taste like an ulundu wade, but it was a doughnut. And believe it or not a doughnut without chocolate syrup is not quite bad with lunumiris! But people please never try this at home.

When talking about our canteen ‘pol rotti and lunumiris’, right at this moment it makes me hungry. Well as Samadhi mentioned earlier especially during the time we skip lunch due to busy schedule ‘pol rotti and lunumiris’ is god-sent. Anyway, I went today for a interview and the people over there was very kind and they offered me a tea.

Though I’m very much proud to be a Sri Lankan, unfortunately I’m not a tea fan. But then again I did not want to be mean to offend their hospitality, I settled for a plain tea, when one gentleman ordered tea without sugar.

I guess that’s what he understood, while another gentleman did understand what exactly I meant by plain tea, please. What I meant was, without milk, because in case if they would have offered me that I would have surely been in trouble because I hate to drink milk from the age of five. Sometimes people do get to face uncomfortable situations like that, I guess.

Well for me, the best and the most delicious food has always been my mother’s home made stuff. Trust me, she sometimes even make different puddings, all to her own recipes and when we ask for the name she gets stuck, so we end up fabricating a funny name to annoy her for fun and love.