A Japanese true story
Mostly I have survived in Japan by selfreliance (I cook food
for my needs). Buying rice from a Japanese Supermarket was easy.. Rice
is quite easy to recognize, right.. but paying 500 Yen per Kg (Rs.150
or more) was really a pain.. So I have decided to try more North
Indian food.. But that needs Wheat
Recognizing wheat floor was not an easy job for me.. Almost all the
powders looks like wheat flour.. In an all japanese store, it is
virtually impossible to recognize it even from powerdered pesticides.
After some struggle with the store keepers, I found a man who can
atleast speak some english words.
Me: Sir , could you tell me where the wheat flour is ?
Jap: Wheeet… wht is that ?
Me: Wheat just like like rice.
Jap: OK.. (Then he takes me to the place where the rice is and points
that to me )
Me. No.. that is rice.. I need wheat.
Then he was going to take something from his pocket. I was ready to
run and cry for help. Thankfully that was looking like a calculator.
That was actually a language translating machine.
Jap : pleeese tell me again what you want..
Me: Wheat
Jap: W.. e ..a ..t .. no there is no such thing here..
Me. It is W h e a t..
Jap: W h a e t..
Then I bowed in front of him and asked for that machine from him. He
also bowed and gave that machine to me.. I typed the spelling
correctly and then after seing the japanese word for wheat,..
Jap: Oh wheatoo..
Me: (Smiling for the first time after entering that store )
He showed the way to the place where the wheat flour is . I bought it
for just 120 yen / kg.. Not bad as it is only 3 times the Indian price
where as rice was more than 10 times.
I went home happily after that incident only to find that there is
nothing like chappathi maker to make chappathis there.To make
chappathis , we need a roller.. As none of the people who stayed
before there drank even a beer, there were not even bottles to make
chappathis. That’s the situation where we apply our Kerala Brain.,
sorry Indian brain..
I looked around and found the vaccum cleaner.. I have seperated the
extention pipe of the vaccum cleaner and washed it in hot water.. I
you know what, I got a roller to make chappathis and what more to say
, that night I had 12 chappathis with potato curry ..