dal makhani

it was my first ever trip to north India. so also to iit delhi. a not so sprawling campus, with a huge building at its centre welcomed its visitors who were sweating profusely, though not by looking at its building; it was the month of may.
april or may, it hardly mattered back home in bengaLooru. never had i even thought of a hot evening! but this was different. you would either be an adventure guy or be extremely thick skinned(!) if you stepped out of your shelter at noon; the sun is hot.
it was lunch time and i had to walk around to find a canteen somewhere to satiate my hunger. a few enquiries here and there led me to a canteen, weirdly named. i don't remember the name as such.
there were a few notices outside which announced a quiz or two in the near future, which promised a seat in the IIM( you just had to attend their coaching classes), which expatiated on how ragging was an unnessary and sufficient evil and hence asked you not to indulge in it and also went on to detail the measures taken by the supreme ___________________
the noise inside enticed me. i went in slowly but straight towards the coupon-counter. the man sitting there was lost in exchanging money for coupons. he wouldn't even see your face, he only saw the notes you gave.
i waited till everyone went away. he raised his head. asked me, "hmm?"
i said, " kya hain khane ke liye?"
he pointed at the board hung from a nail at a distance behind him.
i took time to scrutinize things. he stared at me. there was nothing i had seen earlier.
not that i was utterly unfamiliar with north Indian food, but that i had not given much importance to relate the names and the the dishes. simply put, i didn't know what to order!
i looked straight at his eyes and said, "ek dal makhani".
"hmmm, aur?"
"bus, pehle ye deejiye"
he stared at me for a second when he saw a flood of people coming towards the counter. he soon exchanged my money for a pink coupon and pointed towards the kitchen. a man took the coupon away from me and asked me to wait for 20 minutes. i started sipping a coloured drink in the meanwhile.
i looked at people now; they were busy in activities, eating being a commonality. girls and boys fed each other, some were washing their hands at the basin, some were ordering for more rotis and some more were shaking their heads vigourously, with a wire precariously dangling from their ears.
the drink was over but the twenty minutes were not. i looked at the menu which was lying on the table, browsed through it and found that i could not infer what it all meant. i kept it back. i took out my mobile phone and saw if there was any missed call. there wasn't any. i pushed it back into my pocket. i stood up and was going towards the kitchen when a server brought something and kept it on my table. unstopped by this, i went ahead to the kitchen and reminded then that their twenty minutes were about to get over.
a fellow came from behind me and asked, "dal makhani aap ka hain na?"
i nodded and went ahead towards my table to find a bowl containing brown coloured curry made out of kidney shaped beans. that was supposed to be dal makhani.
story from here on would continue in a way not very different from what many people would imagine. but among the other things which happened , i also vowed not to order dal makhani again..