Meat-evil Tales

Last week I had been to the Majestic area to send off a friend. With its labyrinthine (old time Bangaloreans who can navigate the rather pompously named area like the back of their hands will rather see that I undergo an apoplexy at this point of time!) streets, lined with shady bars and hotels fronting shadier operations than providing lodging for the weary traveler(the bars, include a couple which I have on occasions patronised before to ease into particularly tedious journeys by bus, the hotels however are bowlderiseable) I found it apposite to meet her at the KFC outlet on Tank Bund Road opposite the KSRTC Bus Stand.

After an expedition through the dark wastes of a series of back alleys and an excruciating wait outside an ATM we settle into a booth at KFC, a banana smoothie and chicken snacker attempting to ward of mild borborygmi. The tray on which the aforementioned items were carried had a paper mat on it which expounded on the long kept secret recipe using 11 secret spices to cook up the world's so called favourite chicken. Apart from eulogising the 'finger licking good' poultry dish, the paper mat had rather interesting strips of cartoons at the bottom under the heading "Lesser known ingredients of our recipe for temptation".

Actually they were appalling and would appear so to any self-respecting meat eater. For an institution which had built its reputation on its juicy, mellow spiced strips of chicken it took a complete U-turn with its four different panels depicting integral components of the much loved piece of poultry. For me it cried totally foul! The first panel illustrated the different utensils to cook and and post that to gorge on the dishes they served. The devilishly horned spiked fork, a knife looking like it would be best put to use by Jack the Ripper and a round cutter looking like a medieval instrument of torture are labeled 'Non-Veg Utensils' as opposed to the less evil 'Veg Utensils' of saintly looking spoons, cookers and even a five petaled flower.

The next panel featured an Addams Familyesque trio (indicating the non veg crew) with black bibs to indicate their evil sides, long incised teeth and all. The veg crew looked rather sprightly, grinning ear to ear and dressed in spotless white.

KFC is a card holding right winging member of Republican USA. According to them non veg oil comes from the middle east (a member of the axis of evil). And veg oil comes from central asia presumably cleaner having been apparently cleared due to the US war on terror. The last cartoon shows a barbed fence surrounded factory spewing black smoke whereas on the other side where the grass is greener is a house with a pouting chimney emanating what looks like sweet smelling perfumes. Take a guess which side is the non veg cooking area?

I wonder why the marketing guys at KFC decided to take this approach when they are perfectly aware that they get to take home the 'bacon' on account of the plumpened, perfectly bred gallus domesticus, a fact made quite clear in the wares they sell viz. the fried chicken. Or maybe I was the only one who bothered to read the mat while the others followed a strategy of -I came. I ordered and ate. I left without bothering to read and fret. Bu'r'gger me!