The lady of my elderly friend's house I was visiting to meet a new acquaintance offered some snacks to eat while we three of us sat together for a chat. All of us were cricket enthusiasts.
I was listening to their conversation about some nostalgic moments while eating little spoonfuls of the snack. Since the plate was in my left hand, I was casually seeing what and how much came on to the spoon before it was delivered into the mouth. One particular scoop needed a very close look. I withheld to observe as the tiny speck was of different colour. It was among the green coriander pieces, white coconut gratings, creamish vermicelli pieces and black mustard seeds. The shape of this very tiny rounded metal object was like removed lead debris from a soldering electronic circuit board.
It was nothing new to me because I am jinxed about finding weird little objects in my food plate.
I kept my little 'find' aside and continued like nothing happened, until the other two also finished theirs. The lady of the house had to be see this, because they buy food stuff from reliable stores and in turn they should be alerted. Showing this, I made it clear about my genuine intention which she understood and kept the 'find' for that purpose. This is an extremely stray incident. But this reminded me of another stray incident many years ago.
I was packing a few Parle Monaco Biscuits [click] in the little box for my kindergarten kid to be taken to the school. We normally take these packed products for granted, more so if they are from reputed companies. This company was established in 1929 and we were among the thousands of patrons across the country. Call it whatever, either pure chance or divine intervention, I happened to impulsively turn one particular biscuit to see its underside. It was a casual glance. Lo, there was a tiny, 'V-shaped' object embedded on the underside!
Several thoughts flashed across. What if I had put it in the box and what if it had got stuck in the little throat of the kid, etc. I thanked goodness. I withheld it. The object that was embedded was a worn out piece of conveyor chain belt in the factory as it passed through the oven and then for packing.
I wrote to the manufacturer how a potential danger was averted and guessed a possible reason for the tiny fragment escaping into the packet. I also enclosed the fragile and crisp biscuit in an envelope.
After some days, there was small a postal parcel for me. It was from that company!
Read a part of my letter and what they wrote back, sending me 8 packets of biscuits.
Read a part of my letter and what they wrote back, sending me 8 packets of biscuits.
[Click to 'enlargify' and read]
