Memories of a Meal- My Close Encounters with Food

Hi there! Hope you have managed to keep your spirits up in the midst of this unprecedented upheaval brought about by the dreaded virus. Maybe it is Mother Nature’s latest reminder to us about our place in the grand scheme of things. To those of you who have taken out the time to read, connect with and appreciate my last effort highlighting the influence of music upon our life stories, let me express my gratitude. And let me also take your permission to introduce you, and anyone else who would care to scourge through my writings, to another indulgence in the life of your truly and surely, yourselves too- food.

‘I hate people who are not serious about their meals. It is so shallow of them.’- Oscar Wilde

It would be almost sacrilegious to infer that there is nothing more to food than being one of the very basic necessities of a human being. Every morsel of food, prepared with helpful dashes of finesse, expertise and most importantly love, has the power to satiate not just your body, but your soul too. It also remains etched in your memory forever.

And I am not talking about the food that mother puts on the table every during meal for us, because that is pure love poured out on our dishes by way of some divine arrangement she has with the maker and already a part of our subconscious. Neither am I referring to this recently proliferating segment of food which identifies itself with the self-promoting term called ‘fine-dine.’ No doubt it is the rage our age with its eloquent preparations, glitzy presentation and a more than cursory association with upward-mobility in life. But in the end, it is shallow, superficial and utterly lacking in context, the very ingredient great memories are made up of.

Instead, let me talk about food that has crossed my path at different moments of my life, sometimes under the most unexpected of circumstances, and left me with an immediate imprint on the belly and a permanent one in the mind.

My first opportunity to experience outside food on my own  came when I was around 13-14 years old school kid. There was this little eatery quite near to my school at Panbazar, Guwahati which used to specialise in only two preparations- chowmein and rolls. But they made up for their limited menu of dishes with an unrelenting emphasis on perfecting the available ones. And without doubt, their chowmein and rolls are still the standard I apply to assess the quality of these dishes anywhere I order them. I recently made it a point to visit the place after almost a decade and found them still belting out the same dishes with undiminished intensity and sincerity. More power to them!

It was the late nineties, the time when we were young and seemingly fearless and Bobby Deol, with his long locks, was the screen heart-throb of the moment. Poor old Bobby has nothing to do with this story, but he has been mentioned for no other reason but to emphasise that it was a really long time back. Context established, let’s get on with the story. Three of us, my best buddies from school and myself, were travelling back to Delhi after having embarked on an eventful trip that had taken us to places like Dehradun, Mussoorie, Rishikesh and Agra and more importantly, had left us rather short on cash by the end of it. The time of the ATM cards were not yet there and we knew virtually no one in those parts. We were like the original troika of ‘Dil Chahta Hain’, except that coastal Goa was replaced by the North Indian plains and the swanky convertible by rickety State Transport buses. Anyhow, we were virtually penniless by the time we had started off from Agra for Delhi apart from just enough cash to make it back to the Delhi University hostels, our then current base of operations. Midway at Mathura, hunger pangs grew but all we could afford with whatever dime was left with us was a fruit chaat being sold by a street side hawker. But boy, wasn’t it the most fulfilling fruit chaat I have ever had in my life! That sweet and salty taste, along with all the warm memories of that trip, is as fresh as yesterday.

Around the same time, I had turned up at REC Silchar for my engineering studies. For the next four years, I had the most uninhibited time of my life, making friends for life, sharing clothes and secrets, doing a lot of foolish stuff but never, ever regretting a moment of it. And also, I found love. Before I digress further, let me get back to the food. The hostel food was, to put it mildly, just about tolerable on any given day.  But then, wasn’t hostel food supposed to be like that everywhere? But every month, came a day, a night rather, when the cooking staff at our hostel mess would channel their inner Master-chefs and amaze us boarders with the most delectable cuisines that their culinary skills and the limited mess budget could conjure up together. It was the time of the Grand Feast, the most important event in the monthly culinary calendar of our hostel life. We would turn up in all our finery, guests from other hostels in tow, to partake of the great food on offer. It was an opportunity to celebrate and cement our friendships, indulge in some harmless banter and get ready for whatever challenge life would throw at us next. The mood and the occasion, more than the food, which itself was surprisingly delicious, is what remains etched in my memory.

Fast forward to early 2000s and a dusty little town named Hospet in northern Karnataka. Posted there as a trainee recruit, I was as far away from home as a Siberian Crane would be from Siberia in the winters. I was homesick and had not yet gotten used to the cuisine down South. But then, one of my colleagues pointed me towards a little eatery tucked in the corner of the main market which served authentic North Indian food. As I made it a point to visit that place as often as I could during the next few months I was posted there and enjoy the really sumptuous food on offer, including their incredibly prepared Palak Paneer, it was like a home away from home. Although I had got totally hooked on to the rich palette of South Indian food by the time I left the place, the taste of the food enjoyed at that little eatery still hasn’t left my tongue even after so many years.

My job next took me to Ahmedabad, the largest metropolis in the land of the dhoklas and fafdas and many more finger licking delicacies. Gujarat already had quite a sophisticated eating-out culture, with numerous eateries and restaurants offering different range of dishes (mostly vegetarian, as you would imagine) ranging from Chinese to South Indian and everything in between. However, the most memorable encounter with food I had there did not take place in any of those urban watering holes, but a bit away from that. It took place in Surat, the bustling commercial hub I used to frequent as a part of my job description. My favourite place of stay there did not enamour itself to me on the strengths of the quality of its lodgings but, you guessed it, the food on offer. And the tour de force of their menu was the yummiest Chilly Paneer I have ever tasted in my life. It was definitely nothing  like the authentic version served in numerous fine-dine restaurants all around, but it was something else! It could still beat any of those authentic versions hands down on the basis of its sheer outrageous ambition and taste. I sincerely hope that they have not yet fallen prey to the mindless pursuit of authenticity and kept the taste intact.

Throughout all this years, my job as well as family commitments have allowed me to travel widely across the country, providing me the with opportunity to form different memories of the places I have visited, one of them inadvertently associated with food. I still vividly remember the Puchkas I had on the streets of Jamshedpur, the Chaat in Kolkata, the Mixed Fruit Falooda in Ahmedabad, the Dosa and Uttapam at Hazira, the Thukpa and Bun Tikki at Dehradun, the Vada Pao in Pune, the Spinach Stew at Lunglei, the Khasta Paratha in Lucknow, the Pancakes at Landour and many such little indulgences that are now part of my memories of those places.

And a special mention has to be made here of a lovely little breakfast place that we had discovered during our trip to Singapore couple of years back. It served the most satisfying array of breakfast menu consisting of home-made toasts and cakes, eggs to order and endless cups of Kopi. Everyone enjoyed it so much that we made it a point to have breakfast there every single day during our stay there.

As the journey of life moves along, food has remained a faithful companion, letting me savour the different tastes of the places I have been to and make lifelong friends of the lovely people I have met along the way. But most importantly, it has been a like silent teacher, always egging me on to be ready for life’s surprises to manifest themselves in the most unexpected of ways and places and telling me to never, ever shy away from trying something new.

I hope you too had a similar journey. If yes, do share your thoughts.