athithi-devo-bhava

I just came across this write up and feel it very rightly brings about the essence of true Indian Hospitality. Having traveled extensively across the length and breath of the Country, I have personally been at the receiving end of umpteen acts of such Hospitality. We at Tunduree try to imbibe this tradition and practice it every day.

I strongly believe, that it is just a matter of time before which any guest at our establishment would forget what a particular dish tasted like, It may be just a few weeks, months or may be years. But what remains etched in their subconscious mind forever is how they were treated and greeted when they were in the restaurant. Even if the food was not up to their expectation, they would be willing to come in again just because they felt nice in the warmth of the hospitality showered upon them. This is precisely what the ancient Indian Scriptures teach us- treat your guests as gods- In effect, treat your guests with the utmost respect and warmth, and put their wellbeing above yours.

Enjoy the link above:-

Tun-Du-Ree means quick, tasty Indian food

For better or worse, the deal is done and signed.

Yes, we would be opening up a location at 1506 W Kennedy Blvd. It is build out time.

No, I don’t have a fancy budget to work with.

Yes, I did consider taking in a rich partner to make the going a bit easier.

 No, I am not going that route any longer.

Yes, those couple of meetings with potential investors/partners were the most humiliating four hours of my life.

No, I don’t think I will consider raising funds through partnership again in the future.

Yes, I did raise the money from the three ’F'  sources - Friends, Family & Fools ! 

No, I didn’t tap into the third source yet!

Yes, It is 18 hr work days- 1hr commute, 3 hrs cooking, 6 hrs at the trailer, 6 hrs handy man work at the new location, 2 hrs meetings,discussions,planing,web-surfing and blogging.

          I have been pounding the pavements for months now, looking at potential sites for a new home for Tunduree. I prefer to search for a location the old fashion way of actually getting to a general area of where I would like to be located and searching for possible sites. I usually make a list of places, get there and park my car in a lot and walk around, grab some thing to bite, strike up a conversation with any one with time to kill and walk around for miles to get a  feel for the place. With our economy the way it is, there are plenty of vacancy signs and phone numbers along the streets to give me company. You will be surprised how much you learn in a couple of hours, talking to Landlords, Agents and Hobos on the streets. Some might call this a backwards approach, but I prefer this to sitting on my computer and pouring over the listing sites and scheduling a showing for places you don’t have a feel for.  

            It was in one such visits that this sweet agent talked about a potential site which would meet my requirements, and before she finished explaining it , I thought ‘ that is it’. The scheduled showing later only reaffirmed my belief. Convincing the Landlord to accept my offer and arriving at a middle ground was more difficult than I though. But things seem to be falling in place…so far.

Well, I have been having this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach more often lately. Specially when i get those phone calls for dinner reservations!! Whats wrong with that ? you may wonder. For starters, we dont take dinner reservations, since we dont have a place to seat them… We dont even have a roof to stand them!! The calls asking for a handicap access toilets are another embarassment when I try to explain that we dont have toilets even for healthy beings! High chairs for children? No we dont even have low chairs for adults. “We are a freakin Trailer with just a little cubby hole on the side to put in your hands and grab you food..! that is it.” I end up explaining when faced with multiple combinations of the above questions. Umpteen times people turn up and kinda ask me if this is ” the tunduree” with a look of bewilderment. 

 I guess these are the side effects of when the image gets larger than what you actually are. That is when i started working on the project to find a decent next level home for Tunduree. 

 Well for any one out there thinking that hiring the best professional in the field is the end-all to having a kickass website, here is a wakeup call. An angry kid, irate wife, two broken keyboards and twelve sleepless nights later, i realise  that having a professional is just the begining. Your website is an extension of this vauge idea  in your  head of what you want to lay bare in the cyberworld. So I guess the endless iterations with your web-designer through extended mail chains is kinda like paying your dues for having what you want. For a tardy typist like me , it would take 2-3 hours to put down my daily comments on a mail (as my IT guy refuses to talk to me over the phone), and when i hit the send button, an error page pops up and deletes all my work..grrr. thats when i lost my first keyboard to my fist. I save the story of the second keyboard for later.

Long story short, I wish there was an easier way. I now understand the difficulty of putting together a site. Earlier,  I tried it using “easy to use tools” , and gave up a few hundred hours later. I would prefer the route of hiring a professional  to ‘DIY’ any day, but hey, whining is my birth right and I shall have it..

So long

Hi,

I am just trying out the blog plug - in provided by my Site Programer . I should sort out the kinks and be belching out pages of unreadable material soon..!

So long,

Pat