It was a thursday afternoon, I was in my hostel after a long and rainy day. I walked into the mess as the lunch was still being served. As soon as I reached the mess; the brightly coloured chairs do make you feel pleasant ; checked out the menu :
Brinjal aaloo it said, with somehow , a crooked j ,which looked like a pirate's wooden leg which we see so often in movies and then , a cat purred...
..... Its a really healthy cat we have in the mess, unlike the others who loiter around outside ... and boy!! it had a wicked face. The plate in my hand was still and my legs were fixed for a moment or two, till someone shooed it away.
I was just trying to imagine what would i do if i ever came face to face with a tiger, given the condition i went into looking at a cat and telling God He had given a characteristic bullying feature to the cat family , which atleast I didn't had.
And then came the life changing moment in my life, i took a serve of the brinjal-aloo(aloo= potatoees, for those who dont know)... It looked not bad ....It looked as if somebody had made mashed potatoes but added a lot of seeds and big red chillies in it,still i was :).. let me explain my love for potatoes briefly:
As a vegetarian who hated paneer , the one and only vegetable which had never disappointed me in all these years is potatoes along with a few others ; but seriously , my love for potatoes is so much that I love to believe that somewhere I have some Irish genes inside me... So I had practically never disliked potatoes in any form they were served to me ... and then i took a bite of the dish we know as brinjal aloo,
It was like eating a mollusc who had diarrhoea
It was as if you had a rat's intestine in lunch with undigested grains
It was like somebody puked inside the vessel in which it was made
I saw my room mate eating it happily and bombed her with atleast ten questions:
Q. What is it?
A. Brinjal aaloo..its written na..
Q. why is it white ???
A. (counter question) what else would it be?
A2. I have never eaten this vegetable this way. It used to be yellowish in my previous hostel
Q. Do you like it?
A. Uhuh..
Q. But theres nothing pleasant in it
A. Eat your Dal then
Q. Do you like potatoes?
A. yes, i do
I try eating the dish and not leaving leftovers in potato form,
feel disgusted ,
give up
Q. Do you mind if i write a blog about this dish and tell everybody how bad it was?
A, (smiling) I wont mind.
I would have taken a picture for you guys but didn't had my phone with me, but now I plan to be camera ready whenever I go to have a meal..
