Food for Thought?

Might I take a moment to acknowledge the (unrevered) fact - It's December! And you know what that means. Christmas carols, anonymous presents, and calorie gains are only subordinate to high adrenaline for it's GRADUATION YEAR next month which means you're going to, you know, die.

It is amongst all this hungama that I find time to do general mundane activities such as eating or eating in restaurants. A few days ago I went to a restaurant with my family to gnaw and gulp some endearing Indian delicacies when I noticed this interesting trend that I thought would be suitable for one of my stupid blog entries.

OMG.

So what I've horribly sketched here is the overall outline of the restaurant.....

Okay, so this is the LOL restaurant. It doesn't have to stand for Laughing Out Loud, or Lots of Love. It could stand for, say, Lecturing Objectionable Llamas. 

(That's a llama wearing a bikini smoking weed.)

(Jk. That's my desperate attempt at trying to be funny. And let's just get past this, because this is a restaurant, not llama rehab.)

So Laughing Out Llamas or Lecturing whoever, I went to this restaurant and the circle things in the diagram above represent different tables where people could sit. There were two on the left, two on the right, three in the middle, and four at the back. Note that even if I have made the three tables in the middle purple, they actually were exactly identical to their furniture friends on the sides. 

Okay so the four blue people at the entrance is me, my dadi, and my parents. So we're entering the restaurant, and we notice that 7 of the 11 tables were occupied with the little black circles (representing customers). So we look around, deciding where to sit. And without much ado, we choose the second brown table on the right. 

Then another family arrives.

After thinking for quite a bit, the new family chooses the table near the back row, which I have marked. 

Do you see the trend?

When this family chose the table near the back row, it made me wonder. Why didn't they choose the middle, or the front table? It's not like those tables were made of velociraptor skin or had thorny chairs. And it's not like the tables we chose had hot waiters enacting Glee scenes. Every freaking table in the restaurant was the same, made of the same material, and just as appealing. 

Everyone who entered that restaurant chose tables that were near other occupied tables, and out of direct view so that when someone would enter and their eyes go straight to the center, it would meet the seclusion of a desolate, empty purple table that no one really thought of occupying. 

Now before you begin brandishing your opinion of my absurdity here, I know what I'm saying here is also pretty stupid. Firstly, who is weird enough to notice such things, forget making an entry about it? Moreover, this 'trend' that I have noticed is not applicable in every scenario, because I have definitely seen people choosing tables that may be beyond the solar system. 

But don't you think this sort of scene does happen once in a while? And maybe there is some explanation for it?

This, my beloved reader(s), arises from our general human tendency of conformity. I tried to Google this phenomenon but I could find none underlining my allegations of conformity in restaurants, so I'll remind you that this is just me rambling and straying away from any possible facts that I may or may not have overlooked. So don't count my little theory as the one and only, and possibly as the accurate, because, you know, I'm just thinking.... 

None of us really like to stand out. I mean, when everyone at a party wears formal wear because it's the dress code, you don't just barge in in your panda costume (hopefully) (but this could totally happen if you're the girl in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging). When all your friends like a person, you also try to like the person and notice the good qualities in them. As much as you may deny, as hard as you may try to 'stand out' and be different, at the end of the day, there are some things, as minor as they may be, that make you conform, and this little restaurant scenario is just one of them. 

Both our families did not choose the tables in the center, because well, as blatantly as we may try to deny, we didn't really fancy standing out or be in perfect view for everyone to enjoy watching us wipe butter chicken off our nose, or pull out strands of our hairs from our mouth while eating. Besides, the human tendency to seek contact and be near others similar to us is a given, innate quality and well, I guess we are more comfortable being around people like us, with their flawed eating styles so if someone were to enter the restaurant and judge us, he/she wouldn't just look at us, but also everyone around us, and would probably conclude that this restaurant indeed is Llama Rehab and walk out. So if you're eating like a reckless hominid, your wacky eating habits will be covered by the wackier eating styles of your hominid comrades sitting in tables surrounding yours.

Actually, if you think about this whole conformity thing, it can be dated further back to something totally unrelated yet equally intriguing.

So I have been tweezing my eyebrows since I was 12, then I started getting them done properly since 9th grade. Now, why do I get them done? Because well, it is given that having thin eyebrows supposedly make you prettier and more presentable. And why is it 'given'? Because, well, everyone around me gets their eyebrows done and tries to advocate this practice. 

But if I think about it, like really think, I would jolly well love to just not get my eyebrows done. It is annoying, painful, and makes me visit the parlor 800 times a month when I would much rather stay home in my Extra Extra Extra Large Tshirt, sprawled on the couch. 

But I still go. And I still have thin eyebrows.

However, thin eyebrows weren't always the trend.

So this is Shyama, a Bollywood actress of the 1950s, and as you can see, she has thick eyebrows. This shows that okay, maybe not all our lovely ladies of the 50s had thick eyebrows, but surely, it was a trend at some point- maybe when your grandmother's grandmother was conceived- but it was a trend nevertheless. Then sometime between India's converting from Kurtas to Jeans, eyebrows went from thick to thin. I saw my friends getting their eyebrows done thin, so I also started getting them done thin. 

Now you ask, how in the world/why in the world did I bring eyebrows into the restaurant/llama rehab?

Well, both these cases are similar because they show that as human beings, we tend to go along with the crowd and do what everyone else is doing. We try not to create a scene. But you know, again I'm just being general. Because personally, I would LOVE to stand out, and that's what I always try to do. 

Anyway, I leave it to you to decide whether this whole entry that I have just finished typing with this throbbing writer's block makes sense or not. Meanwhile, I think I'm going to catch up on my sleep. 

One more thing though- Lately, I have been obsessed with WWYD videos on Youtube. These videos show how human beings sometimes choose to break free of the notion of conformity, which results in some really heartening beautiful incidents that give me hope for human beings. So I would highly recommend you watch these videos. Not unproductive at all, I promise.

Much love (and heavy droopy eyes),