The Subtle Art of Overeating Politely

 

A hotel’s complimentary buffet breakfast is the closest thing to a polite catastrophe . At 6:30 a.m., grown adults who normally need three alarms to wake up are already hovering outside the restaurant door like it’s a flash sale. The moment it opens, civilization leaves the room . People surge forward with the desperation of a species that fears the poori might run away.

The continental section sits there, lonely, untouched. Croissants looking depressed, bread slices drying in the AC because the true desi minimalists walk past them like past bad memories. Bread and eggs? Why again? They station themselves at the dosa counter with the same intensity that they used for land disputes.

Meanwhile the Full-Hog Overachievers begin their day’s construction work: plate upon plate stacked with paratha touching pasta touching pineapple touching ideological confusion. They aren’t here to eat; they are here to economically punish the hotel for daring to include breakfast in the tariff. A subset of them say “ nothing is good” before they go for a second helping. Another guest drinks nine cups of masala chai and wonders aloud why his BP is rising. The rest of us know.

Then come the Protein Bros, those majestic creatures whose arms enter the buffet three seconds before the rest of their body. They demand fourteen egg whites and bargain like they’re at Chickpet. One bro even pours whey powder into sambar, declaring it a fusion dish. The chef’s soul quietly exits his body.

Nearby, a diabetic guest requests a strict egg-white Omelette while simultaneously dual-wielding mango and pineapple juice like nutritional nunchucks. Their glucose meter files for voluntary retirement. And just when the buffet thinks it has seen enough, the rich sleepers float in at 11:20 a.m. Breakfast long gone, even the toaster unplugged. But time, to them, is a rumor. They demand pancakes from the void, and hotel staff obey with the resignation of civil servants during budget season. They order a la carte..

The business traveler meanwhile is on Day four and has a serving of toast–fried egg–coffee déjà vu. He pockets bananas like he’s smuggling state secrets, sips coffee with dead eyes, and silently wonders when he last felt joy. 

Children, on the other hand, are pure chaos wrapped in sugar. They are charging at waffles, drowning them in chocolate syrup, and rejecting anything that looks remotely like nutrition. The hotel staff steps aside as they sprint past, muffins in both hands like victorious gladiators. Their moms are trying to feed them something they detest. The dads overlook this event…

*Uncles* are the true apex predators: poori, dosa soaked in ghee, pongal the size of a meteor, five cups of chai, and then the inevitable announcement “I eat very light these days.”

*Fitness Moms interrogate the buffet like they’re cracking a terror cell: “Which oil? Which farm? What breed of almond?*” And after all this detective work, they consume three papaya cubes and radiate smug wellness.

Foreign tourists wander around in innocent confusion, eating idli with jam, mixing chutney with muesli, sipping sambar like broth until suddenly their tongue goes numb and they realise India has entered their bloodstream.

The lonely cereal guy sits surrounded by 800 calories of joy and chooses cornflakes anyway, crunching like he’s punishing himself for existing.

Somewhere, an influencer couple rearranges that poori for 40 minutes, taking photos from all angles. By the time they finish, the poori has the emotional stability of a punctured balloon. Nearby, professional buffet looters stuff muffins into handbags, slip bread rolls into jacket pockets, and walk out rustling like walking vegetable markets.

And through all of this, someone always makes an impossible request from masala cornflakes, gluten-free poha to a sugar-free gulab jamun while the staff stares into the horizon questioning every life choice.

A complimentary buffet breakfast is not nourishment. It is revenge, it is childhood trauma, it is class struggle, it is comedy, it is tragedy, it is a deeply personal confrontation with carbs.

It is the Olympics of Paisa Vasool. And after the dust settles, after the plates are cleared, after the last banana is smuggled away, everyone makes the same bold declaration:

“Tomorrow, I’ll eat light.”

And of course, as we leave, all of us are already telling the same lie to ourselves, the oldest lie in the history of complimentary breakfasts:

Tomorrow, we’ll behave better.

Tomorrow arrives.

We won’t.

But it’s sweet that we believe it.

** (Week end humor / Musings  -by an unknown author)