Lately, the folks at Rucchi Indian Restaurant (I-55 Frontage Road, across from Video Library) are all about atmosphere.
They’ve covered the diamond-shaped windows with navy blue, gold, and dark pink fabric. They’ve lowered the lights. They’ve stopped serving so much chicken; now, lamb and goat is just as well-represented as yard bird. There’s something magical about working your way through the buffet in jewel-toned semi-darkness — it transports you to places far, far away from Forest County, Mississippi.
What has captured my imagination more than anything, though, is the music: over and over and over again, the folks at Rucchi are playing cyclical, meditative chant with an addictive harmony. You’d think the repetition would drive you mad, but, instead, the earnest voices and hypnotic beat have you swaying in your seat. Worries and cares drop away. Conversation slows.
After ten or fifteen minutes, the whole world narrows to a single point: that song. You’re bobbing to and fro in time with the drum, and you don’t even realize it. The butter chicken and hot nam take on a sacramental aura. It’s like worship and meditation and dinner on the grounds all at once.
On the way out, I ask the owner, “What is that music you keep playing over and over?”
He grins, excited. “Hare Rama Hare Krishna,” he says. “It is like a constant prayer to God.”
Atmosphere. Ambience. A constant prayer to God.
You won’t get that down at the Piccadilly, I assure ya.
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