Last night a fabulous thing happen, as I waited for dinner to cook, and I am a decent cook, "Balderdash !," my wife would say. "Don't you believe her though," she just lives by her cappuccino and cookies. So here I was in the kitchen, looking to make some chicken, a friend of mine she had spent some two hours making an exotic variety of it. "What ? exotic ? Chickens are as bland as they come, a pair of wings and two legs". "How the hell do you make them exotic ?" was my refrain. She gave a recipe that added up two plus two equals five, and I made a dash to the freezer, took out my chicken and started to carve it up. "Its frozen, you need to defrost it." But I didn't listen to her, she always had too much advice for me, I carved the chicken up into six grateful pieces and then started to shallow fry them a bit.
It dawned on me last night that life's pretty much like a "Chicken Curry and Rice" dish, if you leave the spice out of the chicken, you could very well be eating veggies. Spice is the curry of life, the red chilly that makes you snort your nose a few times, or the black pepper sneezes that resound in the kitchen. From the fast red car to the sexy face in the marketplace, they all have a part to play. "Damn the red Ferrari," and obviously it was too fast for my old sedan, which was nonetheless red in colour. Why do things I like come so expensive, "but hey man, most people would love to own one too". "Yeah, sure and they can afford it to". The point being the damn Ferrari is the spice in my life I can't afford right now, so I will make do with the old red sedan, pamper it and cajole it into believing that it is.
My Chicken was ready in an hour, unlike my friends that took two, just goes to prove I am a better cook, "Look what the chicken turned out to be." A curry with the flavours of South-East Asia and spice to mystify your mind, "Unusual," she said sounding jealous, "but nice." I don't believe she could have done better, though since the Chicken was cooked on her behest and her recipe I decided to give her a portion to taste. "Unusual huh ?" she walloped it and loved it as much as the accompaniment, beer and some Mexican nachos with a dip.
My life would be totally bland, were it not for my spices, I eat at small joints with their own distinct personality, the people that come there are totally awesome and bring with them a thought and the talk to go along with them. This morning for instance I took I ride down to Central Secretariat in the prime locality of Connaught Place in New Delhi, there is this quaint little shop next to the metro station that serves a platter of mixed fruit, fresh and with masala, a mixed spice powder. "Man, do I love this place," though it turns out I go there more for the joints personal touch than anything else, the people, the hum and noise and smell of the place.
Attitude is Everything.
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