The Murali CafeA lurid kind of glamour

The following is an extract from the travel book A River of Life: Travels through Modern India.

The Murali Cafe is the most appealing eatery in Badami. Or is it the least unappealing? Neither expression seems quite apt, because there is in its seediness a lurid kind of glamour which had drawn me to it and aroused a certain recklessness in me.

My usual policy is to eat only in places doing a brisk trade and to have whatever everyone else is having. But nobody in the Murali Cafe is eating. There are half a dozen men sipping water and small cups of chai. A serving hatch across the room reveals a cramped sooty kitchen. It doesn't inspire confidence. Nothing about the place does. The staff are slow. The men sipping chai are sullen. The only lively thing there are the flies. There are no points of hygiene, Murray's Handbook of the Madras Presidency had wisely advised - I found the words quoted in Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby - to which the attention of a new comer should be more particularly directed, than to simplicity and moderation in his diet. I had taken the advice to heart, making simplicity and moderation my watchwords throughout my stay in India. But the particularly rough journey to Badami and an acute pang of hunger have shaken my customary caution from me. I feel hale enough and hearty. I haven't felt this good in weeks. A bout of dangerous eating is just what I need to test my mettle.

I have a thali. Bland stringy vegetables are piled high on my plate, with dark ashy dhal and a mound of cold rice. I eat greedily. I order seconds. I have thirds. And for all my excess, I suffer no ill effects. Ever eager to formulate theories, I wonder if I haven't been going about it the wrong way all along. Perhaps caution, sprinkled with worry, only serve to weaken the spirit and bring the body down with it, while an arrogant feeling of invulnerability promotes wellbeing and boosts the immune system. I am given to excesses of worry, but there are times, rare moments, when I shake it off completely and am worry-free. It is the best way to be.