Teenage Vegetable Danger Hurdle
(Because I like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
I love tomatoes; I can eat them on a toast, on the side, with the yoghurt, with cream, with sugar, with salt and even straight from the bush. Unfortunately, all the fresh round, juicy, red tomatoes in our kitchen garden are bitter now and I may have a little something to do with it. For the last three months, I’ve been singing to the bush, talking to it and watering it every evening, just the way Dada (Grandpa) taught me. But it’s fruits have gone bitter because Mummy won’t listen to me.
Four — five months ago Dada planted some karela seeds in our vegetable patch and two months after that, mummy gladly crowned it as the king of all vegetables. It slyly overtook naive potatoes, harmless cauliflower, pointed okras, soft paneer, petty peas and my favourite ー the pulpy tomatoes to appear on our plates in every meal in some shape or form. Dada and Dadi (Grandma) had jug-loads of karela juice in the morning, for breakfast we had karela and paratha (flatbread) or sometimes even karela ka paratha (flatbread stuffed with karela), lunch and dinner were always some dal with karela sabzi or stuffed karela or karela kadhi or karela raita or karela fry and evening snacks were (yes, you might have guessed it by now) karela pakora (fritters). While Mummy reached her culinary zenith the day she made karela kheer (pudding), Dadi patiently chopped dozens of karelas to pickle them, so that even our long lost relatives who visit us for the next few years could savour the bumper harvest of our vegetable patch.
Did I mention, I hate eating karela? It’s ridged green skin reminds me of crocodiles and the acne on Gaurav’s face and both have a lot in common. Gaurav is always sour, rolling his eyes, scoffing and slamming his door. Mummy says that he is suffering from teenage. Karela is also probably suffering from teenage. Dadi told me a story about how one day Karela got angry and went so bitter that it’s anger bubbled and burst out through the uneven blobs on its skin. While it’s brothers, the melon, the cucumber and the pumpkin all remained sweet. I don’t want to suffer from teenage when I grow up.
The first day Mummy made karela, I quietly slid it from my plate onto Lobo’s drooping tongue. He spat it out. Lobo has his favourites but most of the time his stomach is like a black hole ー it can consume anything that is in close proximity to his nose. This includes worms, ants, flies, leather shoes, bags, potatoes, carrots and almost everything under the sun except for karela. He was growing moody just like Gaurav.
Mummy looked at me and said, “Eat.”
“No.”
“Eat it.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Eat.”
“You know why it is called bitter gourd in English?”
“You don’t leave the table unless you finish everything on your plate.”
She never gives a straight answer. I made faces and moaned for a few hours after everyone was done eating. I knew nothing was going to deter my mother’s resolve to feed her child with crispy chunks of stinging savageness disguised as a healthy vegetable. So I pinched my nose and swallowed it down with a large glass of water. I fought the same battle during dinner.
“I am not old enough to eat this.”
“Eat it.”
“This is old people food.”
“Well, then so is Kulfi. Eat it else…”
“I don’t like Kulfi.”
That wasn’t true at all. I could devour three or four cones of that nutty milky delight at any given day and maybe even six if I was really hungry. She knew it. But I had to stand by what I said, isn’t that what old people do? I tried very hard until the dessert was served and then I pinched my nose again and swallowed the karela.
For three days I cried to Dadi, to Dada and even to Lobo, but no one would save me from my mother. Until on the fourth day, I discovered that the frock I wore had pockets. So I quietly separated the karela from the onions on my plate, pocketed it and later buried it in Dada’s vegetable patch. If Dada could feed his plants with eggshells, banana peels and fish bones, then karela loaded with masala, would be a tastier option for them, won’t it? My eyes would scan my plate like a microscope to spot the tiniest green bits of the teenage veggie hidden deep inside the layered paratha. And when everyone on the table would discuss Gaurav’s falling grades or the Prime Minister’s bold policies, I would quietly conquer the tyrant and bury it with full battle honours. I sang, “Our Father in heaven..” and “Hey prabhu anand daata..”, as we do in the morning assembly at school.
Little did I know then, that Dada had planted a tomato bush near the burial site. Now our tomatoes are sour. Mummy is exploring new chutneys, curries and jams every day, but I don’t have the heart to bury tomatoes. I swallow them with water. I love them too much.
