Tuesday, September 6, 2011
If you're expecting a long lecture about the high fat, sodium, or sugar content of restaurants versus farm fresh, organic, healthy choices at home, you're on the wrong blog.

This post is actually not about food at all. It's about the ambiance here in India. Specifically, the

played in the family restaurants. In the United States, most mid range "Bar and Grill" type restaurants have background music playing at all times, usually hits from the current Rock/Pop top forty or older "always gonna be good" hits from the 60's-70's.

It's the same here in India. . . but different. Here, I wouldn't consider the music "background". In fact, during a recent family meal at the Pizza Hut, Jason and I found ourselves practically shouting at each other to be heard (for those of you who know me, you understand just how loud this music must have been - my default volume has never been described as reserved). They pump the music from the speakers like we're in a dance club, not a restaurant.

Which, no problem for me, this just means if our kids are getting particularly loud, we won't be bothering anyone. Except. . .

There is apparently no such thing as explicit versus clean music here. Tommy mentioned this on his blog about living in China, and it's the same way here. In the midst of potty-training, I took the boys to McDonalds as a reward for no messes one day for lunch. We ate to the sound of Gwen Stefani singing "The S--- is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S" over and over again. In McDonalds!

I did my best to keep the kids too busy to listen, and we left soon after.

On the bright side, many of the (clean) "hits" played here are not what the US would consider new - many of them are from the 90's. For the first time in a while, I feel cool again. I know the words to the popular songs again!

That is, when the speakers aren't screaming curse words at me.


Anonymous said...

I think you'll find its what they think ex-pats want - the loud and the crude! A lot of westerners and returning Indians and the Indians who want to emulate the Western world eat at Pizza Hut. If you go to indian restaurents the music is quieter and either classical Indian or Bollywood.

Lorenda said...

That makes sense to me - we've eaten at a couple of non-US chain store restaurants here in Bangalore, and it was much quieter. I had just assumed this was because the restaurant was nicer than a Pizza Hut.

Rohan said...

You'll notice that a lot of restaurant reviews in Bangalore also make a mention on how loud or soft the music is.


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