The looks

Was having this discussion with roomies here about a colleague who’s gone far east. Further east than even I have. Around twice as east and much less south, in fact a fair distance north.
So there we were watching the rain and discussing. These guys were of the opinion that he’d have a real hard time enduring that place. Oh the place we were talking about was Shanghai btw. “I was like, Shanghai is a fantastic place (or so says discovery channel) and he’s only going to be there for a couple of months. So how hard can it get at worst? I mean, unless he’s out there counting down from day 1”.

One of my roomies suddenly comes up with, “hey, can you consider eating a horse’s tongue? Or a frog’s legs? Or for that matter, a snake?”

I gave it a serious thought, considered all options and said, “yeah… I wouldn’t mind.”
They gave me the stunned look.
I went ahead “There are people out there who eat this stuff, there’s got to be something about it that makes them want to eat it. It’s not like they’ve a shortage of stuff and that that’s forcing them to eat whatever they get their hands on.”

Come to think of it, I really meant that stuff. I wouldn’t go about trying to find some joint that serves snakes. But yeah when I get to the bridge, I’ll cross it.

Anyways, this entire attitude came over me quite recently. During the early days of my stay here to be precise. I was this average non-vegetarian dude who wanted to try out the local stuff.
I used to have ‘South Indian Meals’ on a more regular basis here than in south India and with all due respect to the meals, I got kinda bored of it.
So off we went one day, to a joint which isn’t exactly a house hold name or anything.

Saravana bhawan was probably the only joint which was a household name in my house anyways, and I didn’t know too many people who didn’t live in my house then.

So at this joint, I order myself a malay style prawn mee and the other 2 order an apple juice each.
I got this huge bowl full of what appeared like soup and tasted sweetish with noodles and prawns thrown in at random. Now the prawns (unlike back home) didn’t have the shells (or whatever) removed, they were more like picked off the oceans and dumped into the vessel to be boiled in. The locals use their hands to eat. I had learnt that on my way here.

Back to that lunch. Played around with the mee (thick noodles) for a bit and was about to pick the first prawn. When I noticed it had been actually put in to the bowl as is.

It’s eyes seemed to look at me with a “hey I’m already dead, you cant make it worse for me by eating me as well, can you” look. Not kidding, the eyes were close to tears I tell you.
I replied with a “Come on. You got to be kidding!!” look.
To which it came up with a “if you were as dead and boiled as I am, would you be thinking of joking about?” look.
I gave it an approving “you do have a sense of humor” look.
It tried cutting me down to size with a “is that all you think about? How shallow” sort of a look.
I swallowed my ego and replied with a “let’s be reasonable here, you’re dead already, what difference does it make to you whether I eat you or not?” look.
It tried another card and gave me the “do you know I had a family, most of whom are being eaten by the gentleman in the next table” look.
I gave it a “so?” look. (this was the easiest part of the entire ordeal)
It gave me a “we could’ve been reunited, and he’s at least from around here” look.
I gave it the usual, extremely cheap and currently fashionable, fairly easy to execute “ha… racist!!!” look

It gave up completely and seemed to be thinking to itself, “these humans are such pathetic creeps, they always…” it was at this point that I ate it.

Somewhere during all this, my roomie had very politely wanted to know why I was staring at the dish.
I had given him “gimme a sec, I’m in a discussion here” look.

He looked at the gentleman in the next table, who smiled back before devouring the last of the prawn’s family. Neither my roomie, nor the gentleman nor the prawns in his dish seemed to understand each other’s expressions and to be honest, none of them were bothered about it either.

My roomies, both being vegetarians, do not understand the sentiments between eater and eatee. I being myself got the point across to the prawn that the way to a man’s heart is via his stomach.

I really shudder to think about the consequences of me having failed that test.

But then they don’t call me the Komodo Dragon for nothing. The point, according to me, behind food existing is for it to be eaten.

All the veggies out there who got grossed out and all, I perfectly understand. I went through a stern test myself.

Please don’t tell me it’s a sin for me to consume what I feel like, I won’t tell you that it isn’t.

The looks: Some are born with it, some get it from prawns they wish to eat.

-KD

p.s. I still have my reservations about insects…