The F Word

Well, if you thought this was a post about the most used F word in vocab or in thoughts or in action, it is not. I choose the second most used F word instead. When a person becomes fat, we blame one of the usual and general suspects -- eating habits, lack of exercise, questionable posture and sleep pattern. However, when a Bengali becomes fatter, we have the grand specific hurled at her, the eternal enemy, the crown on the plate -- rice. Tired of blaming my inactive and unhealthy lifestyle, I too, take solace in having the Rice as the Reason I have turned into this unattractive lump.

If you believe that body-shaming ain't correct, sorry hun and sorry bro, this is not gonna be a great read. Being fat is not just a social taboo, it is an individual battle. It is direct kilograms added to the invisible weight predominantly burdening the mind. In one life I have seen my body language sift through my face and fingers, from thin to fat to sexy to unfit. And each time, it inevitably clinges on that crown of confidence that refuses to show itself even to magic potions and pills.

What is it then, about being fat that makes me so uncomfortable? I do not fit into clothes that I feel I should be in, I am guilty to eat things I love to eat and movement angers me. Is this a life? It has only been about three-four years that I started getting compliments, it has been a couple since I was called attractive and charming, and it has been magical, knowing I am "lookable." So long, such were privileges other people were born with and fairer people had the undue luxury of. 

Have you identified your enemy? Is it the Chair you sit on for nine hours a day? Is it the Rice you gobble thrice? Or is it the Ice-Cream you cannot refuse? Congratulations. In my case, all of them and more. I tired out of trying the F-word on them, they don't wilt. You fish for compliments and there is only air, unlike the building army of fat around your waist. Is this a life? All that "your mind is sexy" and "your personality is sexy" is so shady without a fitted attire to shine out from. Does this sound demeaning and limiting? Well, Fat has fucked the fitness of my body and soul. Fat has stopped me from feeling fine and fat is here to stay. 

 

If you are afraid, for yourself or for me, please suggest a motivating factor on kuntalasengupta@gmail.com that would help function upon remedies and exercises. Else, all is but an F word.

 

#FatAF. #SadAF. #MissBeingSexyAF.

Colours of Chicken II

I am sad to have neither received any chips from any of you good souls, nor be called over for a drink. But I am tireless, and the coffee is good, hence I continue, for your pleasure only, since we have had the pleasure of having it already!

Day 3: Pissed with trying to avoid pizzas and not knowing how to live up to "good-food" I ran into the kitchen last weekend. The month had merely begun and my promised quota of chips was already consumed. I was in a foul mood as I put some extra chillies in the musur dal. This could not go on, this being deprived of entertainment and budgeting our days and falling into the habit of rejection, I thought, and opened the freezer to the rest of the chicken. This time the marinate was in grated ginger and onion. The rest as they say, is history. I used the dhania powder to great use and ignored the rest of the yearning spices and pining tomatoes. To this I added a secret ingredient (it is a secret, not aamchur or hing). I repeat it is a secret which I will not let out. Now readers, I am not beating my own trumpet, but really the Mother should stop saying that meat takes no calibre to cook. She cooks exceptional fish and paanch torkari and patient's chicken (a mix between stew and curry and soup), but I would willingly challenge her to making the meat taste so diverse each time. I am waiting to find out who cooks the mutton at Bhai-Phota (for 40+ people) this time. This wood brown preparation was nothing like what either of us had tasted in a long, long time. The nearest M said it reminded her of, was, of her childhood chicken, which is a huge compliment because I also have a soft corner, no, reverence actually, for slow cooking -- nothing beats it.

Day 4: Yesterday, the weather changed. One could see fog and feel a dip. It made me feel like this is the Delhi I always loved -- gently gregarious. It was an evening to slowly smoke on the balcony, which too I have almost let gone of. It was a lovely evening of welcoming winter. I had befriended the local vegetable vendor and got some lovely vegetables and beaten M to her wise measures. I forget! I was happy because I had the first orange! Yes, that must be it. This was the Delhi of long drives and drinks and wild lights. We had to prep today's tiffin and were done segregating the groceries when I said let's cook something delightful! M said she wanted a "light" chicken. I asked her if she would like a soup. "No" she said. Ok, light-coloured! How was that niramish (vegetarian) mutton made? Wasn't it draped in its holy off-white? I had thought of an alternative -- comforting, warm, white-ish, wintry chicken -- I could visualize it, but how do I do it? Once again, like a painter to her brush, I took to my knife and carefully selected the ingredients -- which, deliberately, I will not mention. I think I should have a testimonial here from M about how it tasted, or looked. I can still try and post a photograph from the remains after I get home today. The burnt red chilli and the fresh green micro-inches of coriander gleamed out of the pressure cooker. The chicken sat cushioned against a gravy of sophisticated off-white, garlanded by a rich spill of oil, ornamenting it like a neckpiece. It wasn't dhania chicken, no. It was just the kind which makes you feel you should be under the quilt, with the TV on, Harry Potter or some SRK movie running on it and soldiers of breadsticks to chew the gravy with. 

Gosh. I cannot work anymore. I must go home and eat. 

Gosh, I write palpably well. You are invited -- to compliment and come over for a meal! (Please do not forget to get a packet of chips, or a bottle of good whiskey along). I am tired of doing things for free.

Colours of Chicken

I have always taken outright pride in declaring that I am the sous chef -- I chop and I clean. I almost feel like a product with a tagline, guaranteeing an unfailing performance. However, this phenomena is on the verge of being challenged as I now, over a span of couple of weeks, have cooked something that is better than how I cook mutton. Most things are an accident. I took to the kitchen this time because I was dissatisfied with how my friend left the kitchen. Basically, I have been disgusted and dissatisfied with everything.

The heat of the stove and the piling dishes can choke the best of chefs, but in my case, I was glad to have learnt how to master dal and recollect Mom's dal and ideate what the recipe could possibly be. And I cooked Bengali chhanar dalna with paneer. It smelled very bengali and went down unprecedentedly well. Now it was the turn of the chicken. The chicken cooked at my Salt Lake house is generally very uninteresting -- a local tender hen (the star) cooked mildly (sets without shining). It bored me. I could not convince my mother to separate the kilos and cook them differently. She is not one to be messed with, who knows, she might have just flung the ladle or spud in hand at me. Now that the kitchen was kind of my kingdom, I did exactly that.

1: I followed M's instructions and cooked a luscious honey-glazed chilli chicken out of the beautifully diced boneless set. The prep time was longer than the actual cooking. It was a fiery maroon to look, and perfectly accompanied the deceivingly bland looking vermicelli we turn into noodles. A sight to behold, how those harmless looking little bits turned into mighty bites of flavour. The crisp of the onion slices made me believe that the way a knife runs through an onion governs the taste of the item. I thanked my good sense to not leave behind my knives home.

Day 2: Somedays later, with our boned chicken, I took one half and marinated it in a mixture of curd and various basic spices. With the sound of the tomatoes sizzling in the mustard oil, I realized this was up for another stellar preparation too, especially with the curry taking up the fragrance of the whole spices like a sponge to soapwater. It was marvellous and made us miss the ruti. What we get here is either the massive tandoori rotis which are too chewy after sometime, or the unnecessary Roomali, which I do not have any respect for. Anyway, the chicken was cooked thoroughly thick, and could easily classify as chicken kassa. By the time this slightly red-slightly brown chicken was devoured, a little sour and mostly hot, my confidence generated a glow and I took charge of the regular cooking. I teamed it up with a make-believe navaratan pulao -- nutritious with the colourful bits of vegetables, semi precious with nuts, sweet in its demeanour -- we felt like attending a royal's private invite.

The rest will follow in a different post. I can almost see you salivating. I had a slice of extra sweet chocolate cake (couldn't finish it) with an espresso, go, grab a coffee before you read my next! And if you like it (I hope you aren't listening, M), you can always courier me a packet of chips!

Hellhole

Creative needs and ambition can make one selfish, very, very, selfish. One is torn between living on either side of the wall that is home. While the trauma of being torn can turn into a habit, the tension never ages. And one sudden sunny morning, all modernist texts come alive with the groping question looming large -- what is the meaning of it all -- meaning of life, meaning of living, meaning of surviving and meaning of meaning?

A deck of cards set out to become a synchronised castle, stays so for a smile and then, comes crashing, uneventfully. Nothing happens, because it was meant to tumble. And eventually, even the fall is disappointing, a well of boredom. Yes, that is my arch enemy, so much so that I do not even feel vengeful anymore. I take it in, unlike Batman, who wished to get out of that well of suffering. I have grown a world within -- distasteful, disinterested and discouraging. How it stinks, boredom, with its claws scathing the soul.

People, places, positions -- everything seems to fall apart. Even, philosophy, and physics. And no, I am not playing with an alphabet, instead the alphabet is playing with me, without any purpose. I went in, brave and armed with a key, but the moment boredom got the better of me, I am too weak and unwilling to come out, to even reach for the key. So much so, that this feels home, except that that too requires emotion -- any attachment. 

It was then that a tiny little word with wings came my way, a blazing fire for its tail. It read "Hellhole" but it was anything but dark. I was now too devoid of emotions to be afraid so I held it in my palms. From a distant somewhere, a near future I could see. I was falling, and I was flying. I never recognised my ambition, but it was all that my weight was. It is just a word, look how Powerful! Strangely, the alphabet didn't seem to play with me anymore. It had a purpose. It has one.

Selfishly, I decided to do away with boredom and revisit the land of words. There they were, pretty little powerful things, amusing me. I could not believe I was at their helm. I was Batman and my rope was made of words. My world was made of words. My life is words. Hellhole brought back memories of a yesteryear I faithfully survived, with words. I doodled them then.

Now? Why, I write. Pure.

Letter to Chhuti XXIII

Hi!

Ambitiously, and thoughtlessly, regardless of what you may have to say, I had merely pulled the curtains on you. How happy I am to be proved wrong, to find you lurking, innocuously, like a forgotten torn button inside a pocket. And how faithfully you have stayed, an endless dreams where holidays never end.

The sturdy carrots that usher in the warmth of a sweet winter, the snacky oranges that unpeel last year's thoughts, the fog that stands victorious over the dawn, jingles that you are around. Sweetheart, there are hours at a stretch when I am not me -- when you are only to speed on a highway and cannot press the brakes -- such moments reveal a disastrous side of me, a bitter one where I yell and yield to things which have never earlier bothered me.

And then we are greeted with "alert." Such signals are strange Chhuti, they reverse the entire grandiose of embittered living. The absence of next is so stark that one gives in to the pleasant now. To think of it, how misleading I have been, to think that I have embarked on a new chapter of life, without you. I shied away I think, embarrassed when I felt the red pangs of my cheek to people's "You are on an eternal holiday!"

Bloody hell, yes I am. My unattended dark circles and long lists need not cancel that. The racing heartbeats too, can mute themselves to the banter of the crowd. I forgot I have you all the time and any time I wish to. It took me a while to go through all the letters addressed to you, which you may not read, to look for you in the lurks of the dust-borne curtains, and there you were, eyes shining like a reverie.

You were the past years rolled into a motion photograph, with the power to highlight in my hands. You are the past years rolled into a motion photograph, smiling out of ordinary frames.

No wonder, you never went anywhere.

Love,
K.