Cooking in the danger zone

I generally do not break my good 12 hour lull after a flight but today, I had made an exception for it was a tiring flight and it was becoming really difficult for me to stay up even though Big Brother was on channel 4. I had to be up at an ungodly 3 a.m. to operate a flight to London from scorching 45 degrees Celsius Delhi. I forced myself outta bed after four hours to save whatever was left of a three year old air-crew member’s erratic body clock.

Oh! Do I see something about India in that documentary on channel 2? This is where I stumbled upon ‘cooking in the danger zone’ with Stefan Gates. He was going to feature India and china. Our typical British host went to explore the dalit issue to our very own Bihar. The untouchables were never let into the higher castes’ houses, of course. Nor were they to use the same well of the village for water. They even have to have their food in different utensils. Blah, blah…. Blah, blah! Hah! I know all that. I Am From India. I even have an uncle, my father’s childhood friend, an untouchable, who at tea at our home has on more than one occasion asked for an untouchable’s different cup, laughing his heart out, recounting the stories of their childhood and the supreme proof of untouchable treatment he got in my grandparents’ household in the village. (He has now converted to Islam). And I thought this show was about the food and cooking….

Ten minutes into it, and I could feel myself dealing with uncontrollable tears. A typical dalit family Stefan was visiting worked in the rice fields for they were never allowed to own land. Children in the family never went to school because they had to work in the rice fields for the landlord paid them ‘nothing’ as wages but rice to eat. Rice with the rice soup (the water in which the rice was cooked), since they could not afford to have dal let alone vegetables, was the family’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. The land owners starved them and kept them uneducated to suppress them thus. There was a category in dalit, lower of the lower caste, which was not even allowed to work in the rice fields but only to catch mice in the fields which may be harming the crops. And the land owner would ‘allow’ them to keep the mice they have caught as a payment to the work they have done. That’s all they would have so that’s all they would eat! Roasted mice is their food! (Job search is on at a very high speed in my mind. Could I be so heartless as to just snuggle under a cozy blanket in a London hotel and enjoy the documentaries made by Foreigners?!!! ) Phew!!!

Stefan decides to go to Bombay as many of these dalits, like two thousand crore more people, migrate here in search of a better life. Well, he wouldn’t fly to Bombay, of course, he would like to take the train journey across India, (so snootily British!). While he made faces at the fact that he was going to spend 27 hours in a second class A.C. compartment, which he found to be, hmmm… let me just say, unusual, I am sure cutting across to second class non A.C. and third after that, he felt much better. He meets a dalit boy with polio who cleans train compartments for a living, and whose father has been killed in a dispute over a piece of land which was given to him by government to make a living! After 31 hours instead of 27, 8 pakoras, 3 bhajis and a chili, Stefan reaches Bombay, does some fine dining at a restaurant where an average meal costs more than an average Indian’s monthly salary, before heading to the biggest slum in India,
Dharavi. There is only one toilet for 800 people here. And a shoe-seller who lived and did business in a space slightly bigger than my current bathroom, would give away a free pair of children’s shoes to Stefan for his daughter.

It took Stefan three months to get approval to make a movie on food in china! I was hardly interested in watching a fried scorpion kebab eating host who later actually went fine dining of different penises. I know I am expected/required to put an end to this right here and quite obviously but I just want to leave two loose facts here before I do the same. One, dog’s penis has a bone. Two, there is no electricity in some parts of china, this very day.

Almost Confessions!

You know, I am writing this just because I read, not really read but brushed through, someone else's blog. Someone I don't like so much, someone whose indirect existence in life bothers me at times! One would think why would you read someone whom you don't like, but I do that more than often, I read their status messages, go through their pictures, blogs, notes, anything I can and I feel like.... Yes, I do that, and I do that in order to feel better, to look for things that would tell me that after all they are not such bad people. I do that, to sort it with myself that they have done nothing to hurt me, to not to let them bother me, to argue with myself that I am wrong in disliking them, to teach myself that this hatred is misplaced. But more often than once, I end up with the same emotions I started with, on some other times I end up seeing my morale sink lower. On a rare occassion like this one, I let it out in the open, for everyone to know and judge.
Life is nowhere near perfection and I take complete responsibility (guilt) for it.
I can't trust. May be it's too late for it or too early!
I can't decide. Why can't we just let life be as it is?
I can't soothe. I am scared of even trying, it would hurt me if I my words can't make you feel good.
I can't be nice. No, I am no great soul, if you act like a monkey, I would just be human enough to you.
I can't work hard. I could not have possibly been born to work!
I can't take shit. Oh! I am only kidding myself here, I take shit and I take shit all the time, only with utmost pain and humiliation in my soul.
I can't excel. I always wanted to be a writer or a model, unfortunately I am convinced I don't have it in me.
I can't step out. Life is trapped inside the box.
I can't speak up. I can't be tactful, and people don't seem to like to hear the truth as it is.
I can't take things lightly. Life matters to me so much.
I can't be a gypsy. I want a home to call our own.
I can't be too caring. I love myself as well.
I can't not be bothered. You matter to me so much!
I can't be selfish without guilt. I love you too.
I can't stop complaining. Things just should be the way I want.
I can't run away. I have nowhere to go to.
I can't fly. No, wait a minute. I can fly!
I am tired of living life as it should be, the monotone is magnanimous yet I can't help but be so hard on myself. We are only living a life passed on to us by generations before. We have been told to eat right, speak well, be nice, earn a living and be comfortable. What was the last time we did something on our own?

MA.....

I never call you that actually, isn't it, Mom? But I refer you as that many times over when I am thinking about you, in a cold cold land, far away from where you are.... I miss you Ma, I miss you loads, in tons, in kilos, in light years, infinite times over, but I rarely almost never tell you about it. But I miss you Ma. And when I miss you my heart just fills with tears that make my eyes wet. I scale the world and people think of me as brave. But Ma you know me, only you know what a scared little girl I am, who sheds tears at every little thing. Ma, you know me as I am, a lonely, insecure child who is starved of constant love and attention and care. Everytime I am hurt Ma, everytime people are mean to me, everytime I get crappy food on flights, everytime I make a mistake, everytime I fight with the boyfriend, I want to hug you and weep my sorrows in your warm embrace. Because I know even if you don't understand my problems, or me, you would be there for me and support me. But look what I have made of me Ma, I don't even call you and tell you, how at times life does not treat me very well. But you know, I miss you. And when I miss you at times, I talk to myself the way you do, I make faces and gestures just like you would, do things you would do, eat what you like, say things you would when you want to eat pani-puri, cook in your style, take a mouthful of it and cry. I never watched stupid serials on Colors Ma, but now I watch them for you. The only reason I cook and clean at home Ma, is because I know that would make you happy. I know I have never told you all this, and I don't think I would tell you also, because then we will both be very awkward. Strange, isn't it! But somehow we have never been so outspoken about our love, love that we both actually know that needs no telling. 'You like mom more or dad?', I was asked this many a times as a child and I could never answer. But someone was to ask me today Ma, I would not hesitate, I know it's you! It's you I love in this world the most, it's you who has done the most for me. And I am hoping that you have forgiven the mean teenager that I once was. You let go of your entire self, to bring me into this world, to raise me up! Your selflessness scares me Ma, I don't think, I can ever be like you. It scares me because I don't think I am the same for you Ma. But I know, you don't care for that as much. I know you just want me to make a good life for myself, and that's what I am trying to do, earnestly! I owe you my life Ma, thank you for everything.
I LOVE YOU!