Pickle, rice and Potatoes

Like most tragedies, this too began in the Mess, was fueled by reasons pertaining to it, and has now resulted modifying my relationship with it. There was a time when I was consuming a lot of chili pickle in the mess. The reasons were fairly simple. When hungry and confronted with the mess food, I would do anything to make the food edible. Some of the options were eating out, maybe even stocking food, but the practical problems of distance, sustainability and expenditure drove me to test pickle. The experiment worked wonderfully, or so I believed. With pickle, I could almost eat two times the food I would eat otherwise. If Rajdeep was around, there would be milk and obliging gyps too, and all that would make for good meals.

My tryst with pickle continued for almost two years. In this time I not only graduated from college, complained about people not reading my blog and got enrolled in a postgraduate programme, but also developed Andhra Bhawan as an alternative for eating at the mess or at the canteen of VKRV Rao hostel. Andhra Bhawan is a heavenly place as for Rs. 50 only, you can eat till you burst. And this is for real. There was an acquaintance of mine of whom I've heard that after fifteen servings of rice at Andhra Bhawan, he vomited on the waiter who asked him if he wanted more. It was no one's fault, really, because the waiter was just doing his job and my acquaintance was just bursting, but it did, as I heard, create quite a mess. I, for my part, never get to fifteen servings. My favourites are the Rasam and dry sabji and the chili paste and pickle. Between all of the above, I usually finish in just three to four servings.

I first realized there was a problem when, one day, while eating at Andhra Bhawan, I thought I would faint. I felt nauseous and dizzy and claustrophobic. Then there was this other time when I couldn't eat a full McDonald's burger. My rare meals in the Mess began to shrink in size and soon I was surviving on two cheese slices and a few liters of water a day! I didn't want to trouble my mother with all these details, but one day when I had trouble finishing my first cheese slice for the day, I realized I'd have to.

She thought it was worms. So I was dewormed. There followed many conversations about the consistency and composition of my stool, invariably on the phone. One day my room neighbour even asked me, "Dude, I just want to ask you, is everything ok?" Meanwhile, the problem just got bigger and bigger. Even water was precipitating nausea. I had to see a doctor because jaundice was now being suspected. So I made my way to a doctor in Noida, a friend of my mother's. She examined me. "You're really windy these days?" she'd ask. Frankly, I hadn't noticed. I was just too nauseous and hungry to know. She prescribed some test, for which I went to a Ranbaxy laboratory. The lab assistant looked at me and then at the prescription, then back at me just to confirm, then asked, "Pregnancy testkarana hai?"

It was not a pregnancy test, at least that is what the doctor has me believe till date. It was to test for bilirubin to ensure the liver was working fine. It was. The test was normal. There was still no diagnosis.

I will skip the part where the actual diagnosis was made. The bottomline: I had gastric ulcers. I could now feel good about being ill because I was affected by something most people my age are not affected by and I was now special. Part of this specialty package was a minor modification in my diet. I could now eat only rice, curd, boiled potatoes and bananas. I was so pleased to know that there was something I could eat without feeling faint that the very first day of this new diet, I ate a dozen bananas. But sense prevailed as time passed, and now I usually don't eat more than two. For the other meals I eat rice and curd and potatoes, every single meal, and I've been on this regimen for the past few weeks. Besides, because I'm not supposed to eat very big meals, I eat up to five small meals the whole day! Rice and potatoes on each one of them! Also, I am not allowed to eat outside the mess because not only is it not possible to order just rice and curd if one is eating out, but even when that is possible, it is futile for the taste of rice and curd doesn't change much with location. Besides,eating out would also give my parents a reason to be irritated with me.

I don't know what to feel about the irony of the situation. The problem arose because the mess food tastes horrible, and its solution has been found in equally horrible tasting mess food. Of course, there is Gelusil to change the flavour in the mouth after meals.