A Tuesday

Though I don’t exactly remember what I did last summer, I vividly remember this time when I was very young (okay ‘little’!) and insisted on having ‘French toast’ EVERY DAY including that one Tuesday – when I cried, threw a massive tantrum and refused to eat anything but that! Now it was blasphemy to eat ‘anda’ on Hanumanji day. My family tried to coax and candy-talk me out of it but I wouldn’t have any of it! They gave in (like they still always do) and prepared it lovingly (even if grudgingly) with silent prayers (maybe) to forgive their sinner-of-a-son. Few days later, Hanumanji unforgivingly gave me ‘chicken pox’. It was the first time I was exposed to the causal dilemma of the chicken or the ‘anda’ theory! It was definitely the ‘anda’ I thought. Years passed by and with all that freshly sprouting body hair, my Punjabi belief in eating ‘vegetarian’ on Tuesdays grew stronger. I’d become a ‘chicken’ from an ‘anda’. With all sincerity and to not incur the wrath of Hanumanji again, I became a devout believer in vegetarianism on Tuesdays. Although I didn’t have any growing pains, I always found being confused to be one of my ‘sisters’ over the phone to be excruciatingly painful and embarrassing! Thankfully, this period didn’t last very long. As I transitioned to sounding like my dad (a much weaker version at that point) I decided to exercise my birthright to throw a ‘tantrum’, in my newfound croak. On a Tuesday, “I want chicken”, I said to my mum. Not wanting to make a big scene, she agreed. Or maybe, it was my booming voice. Whatever it was, I was beating my hairy chest in triumph. I could smell the ‘chicken curry’ wafting through the air from across twenty blocks as I walked home from the bus stop after school that Tuesday! I reached home and lunged straight into that wonderful ‘chicken’ curry. It was yummy and exactly what the high school boy had ordered! As I was eating that delish preparation, I kept getting these strange seed-like ‘boney’ bits in mouth. My mum is predominantly vegetarian, so she couldn’t exactly explain what part of the ‘bone’ those seedy things were coming from. Eight chapatis, two big bowls of ‘chicken’ and a warm, fuzzy thank-you-mom smile later, I noticed it was my mother who looked more satisfied…grinning like a Cheshire cat. Moments later, she revealed that what I so intensely demolished from my plate was not ‘chicken’ but instead – ‘jackfruit’ (kathal). I was devastated. I’d just made a pig of myself by attacking what ‘tasted and felt like chicken.’ I threw a tantrum, again. She reminded me of my childhood tryst with Tuesday and said, “I wouldn’t want to put you through that again now, would I?” No mother would, I agreed. But I was angry. Not with my mother, but with ‘jackfruit’. How dare did it deceive me! How dare! A few more hair and years later, I also realized that the version of French toast, which my family had cheerfully been making for years (that I’ve been devouring till date) is not the ACTUAL classic sweet recipe but instead a Punjabified-savory-one. The English-recipe describes it as ‘pain perdu’ – French for ‘wasted bread’ but OUR variation is made with soft, fresh and fluffy bread. A variation perhaps as different as chalk and cheese or should I say as ‘chicken’ and ‘jackfruit’? My family had made a family business of flimflamming their own family while being fabulously ‘innovative’. Some more hair and years later, I moved overseas, where being vegetarian was tough, apart from being criminal. Sensing my virtuous dilemma and perhaps feeling sorry for my vegetarian state of affairs in a foreign land, my sister logically explained, “God hasn’t come and told you to not eat meat on Tuesdays, has he? It’s just a faith and belief thing. So eat what you want.” I wondered if Hanumanji had told my parents or my grandparents or their parents to practice vegetarianism on Tuesdays? Whatever it is, it’s been 12 years since my sister put me out of my eternal moral misery. And 22 since I had a face-off with that jack-the-fruit!