Gastronomically Speaking...

I saw my fictional characters, the sign language talkers again, at a children’s playground. I had taken my two year old to have a swing at the swings and they were sitting, sipping cups of foamy tea.

I decided to give them a name each. Referring to them as the dumb man and the mute woman seemed so – ah – Philistine. Her name, I decided immediately, should be Siti – that was as generic and specific one could get. I played around a name or two for the man in my mind, unable to decide one. I asked my son.

“What name son? Ian? After all after if anyone from the Mufti’s department queried I could tell them it was actually Sufian Bin Abdullah.”

“Surat khabar lama, teet-teet, teet-teet.” My son replied me. Two year olds, I must let the secret out, have no sense of satire.

Well, he looked stout enough to pass for a Scotsman, Ian he will be.

As my son swung like a pendulum, jumped off the swing and played the slide I watched with one eye the conversation in progress.

“What has food got to do with literature?” Ian said, scowling. He scowled when she said something totally pointless and he had a inkling she actually leading somewhere he couldn’t fathom.

“Darling, everything! Each book is like a meal. Some good, some bad and just plain horrible like they were kept out of the refrigerator for days before being served.”

“That is being frivolous, books, I am talking of good books here, are to be taken seriously, they have changed the way we look at things, they have molded and mentored mankind in its 3000 years of civilized existence.”

“Are you sure civilized is the right word? But oh, let us not go there now.”

“Of course you don’t want to go there, you avoid the subject at all costs.”

“That is true darling, it is a subject that tastes like belacan at a belacan factory. Don’t scowl so, my love, you look like the Ayatollah from Kam Raslan’s book.”

Ian’s scowl just got darker.

“Okay let follow the ways of the grandpoobahest (1)of them all, Socrates. His dialectic method. And since Salman has been sired recently, tell me what gastronomical delights that book conjures to you.”

(I swear, dear reader, him being sired was not my idea; I am reporting the conversation verbatim.)

“Books don’t conjure any gastronomic thoughts in me, unless they are cook books.”

"Have you lost your Bacon honey, some books are to be tasted etcetera, etcetera?"

"You are taking it out of context. Anyway I read that just because the teacher forced me to."

“Bear with me darling. Imagine, say, Midnight’s Children as a sumptuous meal at the Bombay Palace, what would be on the table?”

“Chutney, of course, no Indian meal without chutney.” Ian was getting the hang of things.

“Chutney! Yes and mango at that, nothing like the sour sauciness of a mango chutney. What else.”

“Rice, biryani rice, the scented, flavored one.”

“With all the spices in it. A clove that you bite of by mistake and say ouch, but that does not stop from enjoying the rest. You are going great.”

“Palak Paneer, that’s a must.” Ian said, showing off his knowledge of good food.

“And garlic naan, it certainly must be garlic, the exotic flavor.”

“And sheek kebabs. Still with a sliver of coal on it, the rustic international feel they bring.”

“Sweetheart, you are a peach.”

“Definitely some chicken curry, the spiciest available, dal and papad”

“And top it all off with a big huge glass of lassi.”

“Yes, yes.” Signaled Ian, looking like he would choke.

“See my love, that’s what he did. He brought the whole plethora of Indian spices in one grand banquet. He took all the spices and all the flavors and put them all smack on a single table. Not serve you one by one, no, he gave it all to you. He smote you with the entire aroma. The kind of meal after which you just irreverently say: That was some food bhenchod!”

"Oh god in heaven, yes." The man signaled frantically.

"He straddled two civilizations, Western and Eastern, almost removed the ethnic worl and made Salim Sinai a citizen of the word. He quoted Laila Maju and Romeo and Juliet in the same breath. He blurred the divide. It was not a story about India or Indians for the world to read.
He gave the characters the exuberance of Leopald and added a Dickensian touch to it."

The man sighed.

"He took a perforated sheet and made it a statement on the ridiculous."

It was as if he was deflated a little after the flurry of signaling. They ordered something else.

“Please, not Ulysses. I am too full for that now.”

“Of course, sweetheart. Ulysses is the one I have kept for when I get sick of you and want to just kill you.”

(Note to Antares: liked the sound of the word so much and it fit Socrates like a glove - had to use.)