Corpus Alienum

For me moving to Kerala was a start I was eager to make. I was eager to assimilate and be assimilated. But, it is the ridiculous stuff that really lets you know you’re still an outsider. A damn khaki shorts wearin’ picture takin’ tourist.
Like the other day, we had prawn curry on the menu for lunch.
Now like most kids know, it is a well-established fact that every action has a culinary consequence. You decide to Cherry Blossom, every thing within a four foot radius of the shoe rack including the dog for the sake of colour coordination- you know dinner is going to involve steamed pond scum and other things that salute the colour green and textureless mushiness.
The geography teacher gives you an “A” mostly because your volcano unlike the others' puny baking soda-vinegar fizzy fountains, is capable of obliterating class 7A- and Voila! Viva la Deep frying!
Something in the rank of Prawn curry at home would be warranted by ….a coronation of some sort!?! So naturally I ask our galley chief what the occasion was.
To which, he looks at me with the expression that one makes when he realizes that the person he has been talking with is being cheeky with him and says, “Prawn was there ?!”















Now I KNOW I am not in Shivajinagar anymore.

I remember a friend telling me about vegetarians in the Bengal justifying their consumption of fish, calling them water lilies.
Well in Kerala; the backwaters are your carpool lane, your tub, your toilet and your grocery store.