boychh ous lajymout...

lifting my face out of the toilet seat, i dragged my sight towards the clock in my bathroom. 4:30am. and i had been at the throwing up for two hours already. in between standing up and splashing cold water on my face, i think i smelt a waft of the typical ginger garlic tadka...garlic! With the help of a lot of self talk, I controlled the temptation of barfing again.


I was almost 3 months pregnant.Still trying to settle into marriage and the idea of an being pregnant at 25, a world of chiseled bodies, airkisses and a husband whom i would see for a few hours, twice a week. that is if i got lucky. While drying my hands and trying to ignore the size my nose had swollen to, i told myself, no one could be possibly be cooking at 4 in the morning.
turned out, i was wrong, some one at my neighbouring house had an early flight and insisted for breakfast. how do i know? well i guess people in Timbuktu could have heard the profanity of her breakfast talk.especially the part where she asked him to go ***k himself ... why would he want more salt anyway.


i used to and mostly still do, hate the food that my maharaj at home cooks. and i dont mean dislike, i mean hate...
kailash being a "fitness freak", liked whatever my cook prepared.
by whatever, i mean almost always either half, over ,or even uncooked dishes, that all tasted the same, raw slightly bitter green leafy vegetables, dehydrated rice, and ofcourse, salad that tasted like fodder...


 But me, a hard core kashir kouyr(kashmiri girl), who comes from a community that puts in unnatural effort and pride into their cusine. a community that couldnt stand plain non fragrant, dehydrated looking rice, a community that equated a single, yellowing(unfresh) leaf of monj haakh, to absolute disrespect, no one will ever know how i survived that torture.i tried to go back to sleep, i had to make sure i would be alright by evening. i had to visit my parent's tonight... kailash was finally in town after 15 days.


all day i chewed on a sweet mint and had lots of juices... at lunch and dinner time, i would lock myself up in my room, making sure the ginger garlic tadka smell doesnt reach my nostrils.


i needed to go back home. my home. my room, my bed, my cupboard, alas now my sister's. My mum would fuss over me all the time since she found out i was expecting. but i purposely decided to go through the pregnancy alone... it was a test. if it didnt kill me, i would only get stronger.  but of course i wasnt strong all the time. i had always heard that you miss your mum's food when you grow up... but this was not just missing food. this was missing the feeling of belonging. of being looked after, of not being the one in charge or responsible. this was about huge potatoes meticulously picked washed till shiny, peeled boiled, pierced, deep fried, set aside with a sprinkling of sea salt, then cooked for a long, hot time in the kitchen, in the choicest and most favourite of kashmiri spices.it was about the ultimate comfort food, authentic kashmiri dumaloo's cooked by mum in her fussily clean kitchen... it was about the aroma of saunf and saunth that lingered to the hall slowly and made the most disciplined figure watchers convert to kashir food lovers. it was about being a child again...
it was about knowing mum's in the kitchen and in charge. 


when kailash finally came home, i got dressed, and after putting half a kilo of concealer on my  pregnancy discoloured nose and then wiping it off,and putting it again and wiping it off and finally, just washing my face, i went into the living room. 
there was my dear beloved husband, having dinner!
no points guessing, the same crappy gobhi aloo whose slightest whiff would send me straight back to the nausea. for those who were wondering why i hadn't attacked my husband as yet, well i had come to terms with his "healthy diet" before i got married. So initially, each time he would go to my parents  he would eat his dinner at home first and i would then go to mum's and eat there. this way he avoided masala and oil and i avoided depression.


well, on our way to my mum's i was thinking about all those cooking experiments my dad and i would do and leave my mum's other wise shiny kitchen in a mess. i was hoping that i would walk into the kitchen and see my mum preparing leydyur tchsaman(yellow cottage cheese) one one burner and vozul nadyur(spicy red wolly lotus stem) on the other. ahhh and i would make my famous chass... then we would spread a sheet in the middle of the wall to wall bethak and eat! for me that would be a first in days! 
i would lie to her about how easy and smooth my pregnancy is going, as she would spread piping hot, very moist rice straight from the pressure cooker in my brass parat. she would fuss about how i was getting out late (inspite of her warning me of evil spirits that do the rounds at night waiting to pounce on pregnant ladies...). and i would whine to dad how he didnt love me any more cause he hadnt prepared our original, patented, experimental success, aloochatyn(a preparation of grated potatoes.)
i asked kailash to call mum and tell her we would be reaching home in a few minutes and kailash looked cutely puzzled. he was under the impression that it was supposed to be a surprise.
i do not remember being more proud of my self control than i was at that moment. 
in my mind, i saw the insides of the car melting in the heat radiating from my head... and i opened my mouth and blasted a force beam of destructive lava at my husband u would be under impressions once too often for me... 
i didnt know what to do... i knew i was being silly... it was just food after all. i could easily go to the plushest restaurants in the city.why the fuss? i felt like crying like a child... with a sad face, i went to my mum's place.. she couldnt stop kissing me on seeing me. she was so happy! it made me feel better. finally she asked my sister to lay the sheet for food... i walked in to the kitchen and saw some four or five huge bowls kept stacked... i un covered one... and couldnt believe my luck... i asked mum how did she know i was coming ? i was weeping... finally! my mum replied wiping my tears ever so lovingly,"i didnt. i was missing you."


i couldnt stop weeping in her arms... she got slightly worried and in that crammed kitchen asked me "kyah goi mri shoosh? wadaan kyazchak?" (what's wrong flesh of my heart? why the tears?)


and i said finally smiling, "nothing maa, boychh ous lajymout..."
(i was feeling hungry...)