The Not so Good Experiences 

The Cooking Comedies

Mention food and my eyes will light up like a hungry puppy!!! I have always been the quintessential foodie and no one knows it better than my mom. My weekly trips with my Bro to Bakya Fast Foods in West Mambalam, Chennai are the only memories that haunt me when I see a full Cauliflower here. If you are wondering about the link between those two, here is my confession… I would do anything for a Full plate of Gobi Manchurian (Cauliflower Fried in Spicy sauce) and Fried Rice in Melbourne!!! 

Cooking is truly an art…The Murphy’s Law (If anything can go wrong, it will.) is perfectly applicable to novices like me and I take solace from the fact that my other friends here are no better cooks either. My best friend Rabiya (whom I consider as my elder sister here) would strongly protest it and shout me down for being such an ungrateful creature after polishing off her entire vessel of yummy Chole masala (a superb Indian curry), but the fact is her spilling skills would beat my cooking skills hands down any day…Gulp..I am sorry Rabiya...  With this, I could end my hopes of getting a good dinner at her place!!! 

Food has always been sentimental to me…It defines my moods and always cheers me up when I am sad…For 22 years, I had tasted some of the best vegetarian food in my life at my home and the Indian cities which I lived. I had enjoyed the Vada Paav and Double Roti of Bombay as equally as the Masala Dosa and Sambar vada of Chennai. My loving mom had painstakingly written plenty of recipes in my company notepad when I left for Melbourne. That was her parting gift. For the 1^st time, I realized that the company notepad had been put to good use; since it was primarily used for taking nonsensical notes at company meetings and drawing the silliest of cartoons….I will eat whatever food made by me as I live by the mantra called “adjust”. But I was hit by the fact that it took 2 painstaking hours to make 5 “eatable” chapattis and some dhal and I gobbled them up with such ease within a space of 15 minutes. I was flooded with memories of my mom making 30 chapattis and some superb side dish for four of us and how happily we would polish them off within half an hour and leave the place without uttering a simple word of thanks…We thought it was her duty to cook! Huh!!! This phase of my life will teach me the value of simple home food and never in my life again will I comment on its improvisation…that’s a promise to my mom. Sorry folks, got a bit sentimental here….

Generation Y – The Troublemakers

Melbourne’s youth leave a disappointing picture of themselves on Friday nights. The age group from 14 to 20 are the most troublesome as they cause havoc all over the place during the weekends. Their scant respect for other cultures is a direct tangent to the older generation. The worst part would be to see some Indian youngsters getting involved into the act and insult our culture. The funniest thing about some Indians, who would have just settled here about a year ago or so, would be their accent. It is perfectly fine if it comes naturally, but some people put on a funny acquired accent just for the heck of it to show off around other Indians. This really sucks…I mean, there is really no need for a stupid accent if you are able to perfectly convey what you want to say.

Close Encounters of the Third kind

This incident had left me shattered for a night or two as it had practically shaken my belief in the road safety of Melbourne. I was happy for the fact that pedestrians were given more preference here and had taken a new liking to the road crossing button kept at each signal. I have always followed the road crossing rules here to this day. It was a novel experience for me as I had hardly given a fart for those rules in India.

One night while I was crossing the road on a green light for pedestrians, a white car suddenly made a screeching turn and headed dead straight towards me. I was already dead tired that day completing my assignments and had very little sleep the previous night. My body froze for a fraction of a second and I realized that I had to jump hard backwards if I had any intentions of staying alive. I was also carrying my laptop that day along with some heavy books in my bag which made my jump all the more difficult. I let out a bloodcurdling scream, jumped backwards and lay spread-eagled on the road. The mad driver completed the screeching turn and sped off. People got down from their cars to help me recover from the shock. I felt my parts and went home literally shaking my head with total disbelief. It was a miracle that I was alive and I thanked God profusely for it. For the first time in my life, I realized how much unfinished business I would have left if things had gone the other way.

The Eternal Wait…

These three months have changed me for the better and I have begun to look things from a different perspective. Life has thrown a challenge in front of me and I will face it head on. I have realized that, it was this unique experience that I was searching for, to make me the man I intended to be.

John Shedds’s quote, “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” kind of sums up my approach to life here.

I have made a promise to my mom that I will return a better person than I was. Her blessings will guide me through this phase and hopefully I will be able to live up to the promise. Khaled Hosseini’s famous line in The Kite Runner, “For you a thousand times over” will be ringing in my ears each day to remind me of the promise I made to her.

Till then, I will have to make do with my own morning coffee and desperately wait for the day my mom, or “someone else”  will relieve me of this morning misery. Thus, the eternal wait for my favorite morning coffee will continue…