Though a bachelor’s life has theoretically some fun, for me it became a nightmare because of one factor: food. In those days, it seemed good homemade food was no less than a panacea. This is why one of the nicest and toughest memories of each phase of my single life has been none other than related to food. While I was in Lucknow preparing for IIT-JEE, I would often go to the nearest roadside vendor, eat whatever came in the name of roti/puri and rush back to study a little more. No wonder, health had never been a concern before that time. When in engg college, one soul cleansing act was to go to the road side again and eat hot doodh-roti in a bowl. If there were no road side vendors, not many students would have become engineers I guess. In Mumbai, I became fan of big size samosas and for the first time got habitual to poha and kachori. When I recall my single life, it seems I was always starving. And good homemade food was such a hard catch!
Given the background, it became clear to me after one or two episodes that if someone offered me good homemade food, s/he was basically buying my soul. There was a lady blogger who posted a blog with some pictures of her delicious dishes. When I complimented her, she promised to offer me a sumptuous lunch if we ever met. The feeling in my heart was of boundless gratitude and humbleness. Anyone who made me have a homemade food was kind of buying a part of me. Then I also grew uncomfortable and shy receiving the kindness; but the luring of good food was always victorious. And at times this luring turned out to be nightmare…
I still remember that day clearly. During my MBA days I had not visited home for many months. I felt homesick each day. One morning, when I opened the door for some visitor, I found a lady, perhaps someone’s housemaid, distributing sweets which had come along with a new bride. Now at home, mother would always be cautious against we eating anything that came from the outside. But here, I was all alone. The sweet was basically bundi, which brought back memories from the childhood. It was years after which I could eat that sweet; so I finished it in 2 minutes… Perhaps I was not meant to be happy that day, so just in a while I suffered from acute diarrhoea. The memory of that day still brings tears to my eyes. Starved of home made food and homesick for anything which could remind me of home, I got some sweets reaching me by chance; but those made me sick… This did repeat many times afterwards also; as bachelorhood was a curse indeed…
I am so grateful to God that I got a wife who loves cooking :) I am not ashamed to say that the nicest memories of we together has some food made by her as inseparable part. This is why I am a strong believer that women should always know how to cook: that may mean a lot to many, but it is lifesaving for people like me. Still, whenever wife is not with me and I have to rely on restaurants, I face some hard time preserving my health. If I find something delicious, it would upset my stomach; and all digestible things seem to be coarse and tasteless. And then I know I am hiding a sin: if I took interest and learnt how to cook, perhaps I won’t have faced this much hardship. But then I won’t have had so many memories to go back into too!
Have a happy dinnertime!
- Rahul
