First came water...

It happened when I; with a small group of my friends decided to buy some necessary commodities from Perintalmanna and experience Kerala for ourselves. We out of partial excitement and confusion thought that leaving early and experiencing things in the morning would be a better option for us, so we left the AMU MC campus before 12 PM. After experiencing the “fast & furious” bus ride we arrived at Perintalmanna main square.

Shopping took about 2 long hours and we soon got tired of browsing things at the store and decided that we should have some food as we won’t make it for lunch. Thus, started our conquest to find a classy restaurant we could find on the main square. Without any good exploration skills and topographical knowledge; we decided that the best restaurant was the one which we could find at that moment and without further arguments we entered a normal looking restaurant.

After settling ourselves in a table not too far away; we called for the waiter and started talking in English, Hindi and the combination of both. Luckily the waiter knew a little bit of Hindi so he understood what we were trying to say.

First call was for water. We ordered ‘water’ and then two full plates of Chicken Biryani. The waiter after confirming our order went at the counter and then returned with a jug full of water. After putting the jug on the table and arranging glasses he went to another table. Soon after he left; one of my friends touched the jug which was emanating a bit of steam.

“Hot!” my friend exclaimed after touching the jug.

“It looks different… like tea or some kind of brew!” another friend exclaimed as he poured a little bit of water in his glass.

“Smells like herbal infusion…” the friend said as he drank a little bit of water.

Out of curiosity the whole party tried the water and gave different opinion about it.

Soon the waiter came with two plates of Chiken Biryani (Kerala style) and we told him to bring chilled water; to which he complied and brought a packaged bottle of water which was somewhat cold. We then finished our meals and went back to our campus.

Water offered to us at the restaurant!

After that incident we came to know that restaurants in Kerala offer Warm water infused with herbs as a basic custom. So wherever you go; until you specifically ask for cold water, you will be offered warm, colored and herb infused water to drink. Ours was cardamom flavor, you can tell me yours.