The Pickle Bowl Story



It was a Saturday… but not a regular weekend-off Saturday.

Woke up early, did the morning routine, got ready, and left for the client’s meeting place with my team.

I was in the car, backseat as usual. Everyone else was busy discussing things about the client and the meeting. Me? I was battling kinetosis.

Couldn’t really join the conversation, but I could still catch bits of what they were saying.
And then I kept hearing this one word… “Pickle Bowl.”

They were talking about it constantly—like,
“There’s a pickle bowl in this area.”
“Oh this one’s the oldest.”
“That one was costly.”
“This one is the coolest, we had such a nice time there…”

I’m sitting there thinking, “Acha… is it that good? Maybe they have different kinds of pickle bowls… maybe the taste is out of this world!”

And honestly, I thought maybe this is one of those fancy resto-things that people with more ‘social’ lifestyles know about. I don’t really go exploring posh places, but at least knowing these things helps sometimes. 

You know… FOMO of socializing. Like, if it comes up at a party or dinner conversation, I can at least nod along and say “yeah yeah, I know that place.”

Happens to me with cricket too. I don’t follow it deeply, but I keep tabs on X updates just so I can survive conversations 😅.

Anyway, we reached the client’s place, finished the meeting, all good. On the return journey—same story. Me in the back, motion-sick, and again they start about this pickle bowl.

This time my curiosity exploded. I thought, “Okay, that’s it. Let me just check it out.”
Opened Zomato. Typed Pickle Bowl. Results:
Rice Bowl
Chicken Bowl
Paneer Bowl
Veg Bowl
Fruit Bowl
🙃

Then I jumped to Swiggy. Typed again. Results:
Oat Bowl
Good Bowl
Grab a Bowl
China Bowl
Noodle Bowl

But no sign of this mysterious “Pickle Bowl.”

At this point I was going nuts. On top of that, the screen-time was making my kinetosis worse, so I shut it down. We reached back, everyone dispersed, and I just let it go.

Next day, my manager calls me. He says, “We need to build a strategy for this new sports platform. Come up with some good ideas.”
So I ask, “Okay, what kind of sports are we talking about?”

He goes, “Tennis, cricket, badminton… and pickleball.”
😳
Pickle… ball.
Not pickle bowl.
Pickle. Ball. Turf.



Bro… all this while I was imagining some fine-dining restaurant that serves rice bowls with 30 different types of pickles. 🤦‍♂️

But hey… nothing wrong in not knowing everything. Specially the things we don’t use in daily life. Happens.

The Lesson

This whole mix-up made me laugh at myself, but it also reminded me of something important:

👉 It’s okay not to know everything.
 ðŸ‘‰ It’s okay to mishear, misunderstand, or even be completely clueless about things that aren’t part of your everyday life.

What matters is that we stay curious, keep learning, and have the humility to laugh at ourselves when we get it wrong.

Some...days teach you lessons in the funniest ways.

Because sometimes, the funniest confusions make for the best stories.