Go to any lengths for good food!

Workmen go any distance — literally — for their mid-day refreshment, writes Vijayasimha V

Bengaluru grew up as a city of PSUs and manufacturing firms which kept their large workforce in good humour with perks like staff buses and gifts like HMT watches.

But no carrot motivated them like the factory canteen or the mess did, for it was one facility that decided whether the worker boarded the bus to the factory in the morning or missed it.

Needless to say, quality control at the canteen was as paramount as it was on the shop floor, as was evident at a multinational auto component firm in the 1980s.

The scene: The shop floor, where the entire shift at the plant took out a protest march with the ‘foreman’ at the forefront holding a plate of a partly consumed meal. Their grouse: Amid the peanuts in the puliyogare was one unpalatable nut. It was a glistening, stainless steel one.

Brushing aside the management’s assurance that alien articles will not show up in their meals again, the protesters argued that it’s a nut today, but it could one day be cement or a lathe!

The canteen’s effect on staff morale was on show at a defence PSU, or that’s what a group of engineering students doing their industrial project at the plant in the 1980s thought. One afternoon, after the mid-day meal at the canteen, a worker promptly returned to his workstation on the shop floor without lingering around in the corridors. Then, with a contented burp, the conscientious worker went about sweeping the area around his workplace in a show of gratitude to the management. Then, to the students’ astonishment, the “duty conscious” technician spread his towel on the floor and curled up to catch a nap!

Workmen go any distance — literally — for their mid-day refreshment. Sometimes, even cross the state’s borders. That’s exactly what salespersons at a factory in Bommasandra making fasteners for automobiles used to do in the early 1990s. Bommasandra had little to offer by way of eateries, save for a few dhabas. That was no matter for these staffers who could choose from a host of clients making trucks, buses and mopeds a short drive away across the border in Hosur in Tamil Nadu.

They would carefully choose a client whose payment for the last consignment is still pending, and jump on to their Jawa motorcycle and dash down NH 7. After crossing the border, they could switch to a cross-country road, choosing the shortest distance to the factory.

Ensuring they reach the factory just when the purchase manager is heading for lunch, they confront him with a question about the long-pending cheque, employing a tone designed to make him feel guilty. “It will be ready soon, sir. Why don’t you join me for lunch in the meantime,” replies the indebted purchase manager, trying to placate the two. Those were just the words the visitors are waiting for and needing no second invitation, they quickly agree, their “combative” mood at once transformed to that of congeniality. After consuming the meal amid pleasant talk, the two thank the purchase manager and are about to leave when he reminds them about the cheque. Their sheepish smile is a sure giveaway about their actual purpose of visit.

(This column looks at some food fetishes and secrets from a city of gastronomes and beyond.)