quirks from a different corner

I reluctantly stayed at a proper hotel, where mice weren't running across the shelves and the rooms didn’t smell like a cellar. But eating at the hotel was out of question, too fancy, too expensive, and wrong: one must find real India, where a meal is not more than 50 cent, and eat there. So I made my way back to the station, along the sewage drains, past the vendors standing behind piles of pink and green ladus, the pakoras deep-frying away in dark brown oil, the street barber and everybody, sitting, squatting and standing, giggling and wobbling, licking fingers, sipping on chai, gazing remotely into space. Just beyond the corner was a dhaba, where I could get more than a snack: two tables and plastic chairs, pale blue walls covered in greasy fingerprints, a cooking corner to the left of the entrance, a gas stove and a black frying pan, a chopping board and fresh ingredients. The joint was so small and the kitchen so open my channa masala was combined from scratch before my eyes, the onions chopped, the coriander, the garlic crushed, into the frying pan with the tomato and the chickpeas. Delicious, basically home-made, tasty and not overcooked. The cleanliness doesn’t even cross my mind, as I sit there alone I am overcome by the extreme melancholy of being the only patron, and I miss sitting on the floor at Anshul’s house, surrounded by curries, chapatti and rice, he and his father opening jars and bombarding my taste-buds with home-made orange and yellow, mango and coriander, pickles and chutneys: “Is it spicy? Do you like it? Is it not too spicy for you?” As a guest, I am god, as they say: an honorary member of the family, I get to eat before everybody else, eyes on me as I try to maneuver the chapatti like a spoon. Offering food is a form of greeting, an essential routine that happens within the family. Eating out is a solitary event, brought by necessity and circumstance. The home, the hearth, the family is where food traditionally happens, and is at its best.