Hardly out of college, as a strapping the boot entrepreneur, thanks to Govt of Chile that had decided to seed fund our ‘just out of dorm startup’, I had shifted to a country where not all locals spoke Inglés. We had cajoled ourselves that it should be pretty easy to fly across the equator to the other side of the world. How different could it be from flying across Indian states?!
The ability to travel by air can make anyone in the lower pyramid feel they belong to the affluent class. In-fact much of the confidence of middle class first generation Indian entrepreneurs is fuelled by the operational efficiency of low cost carriers. Moreover, as Indians who often jump and drop across states, we are best prepared to face the nuances of culture crossovers. Or so we thought.
Little did we know that being stuck in the international terminal in Sao Paulo, with passports snatched and boarding denied along with fresh and then repeated threats of being deported back to India would be the least of our problems. It didn’t help either that we had maxed out credit cards with no internet, no money, an only one way ticket and a temporary resident visa in the passport that was first stamped in all its virgin glory by a bald old tie wearing Govt official in the sleepy passport office. “Cleared for travel to Republic of China”. But that story still doesn’t feature a Tom Hanks or involve a Catherine Zeta Jones. So, we will park that for another day.
A week of carnal displeasure had already taught me the true pains of being a pure vegetarian. So unlike the Indian sub-continent! I had quickly learnt from the bewildered looks I received from waiters that vegeteriano meant nothing to them. And, also that agua meant unsweetened sparkling water. For the plain old uncarbonated water we regularly drink in India, you would have to ask for ‘agua sin gas’ aka tap water.
When I had first encountered my newly made friend of Indian origin, one who jovially used to introduce himself to Indians as an ABCD ~ an American Born Confused Desi, my jaw had dropped a few inches as I witnessed him take a glass, open the tap, and drink water straight out of the tap. No filtration, no purification, no boiling. “Sin!”, I had thought aloud in English. Indian middle class privilege teaches you that such lowly acts will be punished by sore throats and stomach ailments. If my family would have been in the Aquagard business I would have definitely had an heart attack. I still remember my hands and lips shivering the first few times as I broke my chastity by sipping tap water, waiting a couple of days, and then trying again and waiting. By the time I left Chile, I was already drunk on the elixir of life: agua sin gas!
Doubling up on my survival skills in Santiago, I had quickly learnt how to add “No chicken, no meat, no fish, no eggs” in Español to anything I ordered in a restaurant. Observation, movies and wild gesturing can teach you more of a foreign language than software can. Else, in the pre Duolingo days of gamified learning ‘una manzana’ had been the only phrase I had sincerely learnt from Rosetta Stone.
One typical chilly morning, as the sun rays streamed through obstinate clouds, peeking from behind the majestic Andes mountain range that overlooks the city of Santiago, I was excited to find a vegan restaurant among the bylanes of the beautiful Plaza de Aramas. ‘Un restaurante sin carne en Santiago’, I had chuckled to myself.
“Vegan and vegetarian should be blood brothers”, the naïve me had anticipated.
The rare vegan restaurant had an air branded with ‘conscious living’ – which I had clearly mistaken for ‘living with consciousness’, thus wrongly anticipating that yoga masters would be serving savoury vegetarian food. Instead, I was greeted by the owner who spoke no Ingles but gave a smirk that said, ‘I know why you are here’.
No, I couldn’t have picked up the warning signal then either.
As the dreaded moment of reality arrived in the form of a menu card that I didn’t understand a word of, I also remembered that my Blackberry looking stylish Micromax phone didn’t support Google Glass, or itself for that matter.
Twenty minutes after scratching my head, staring at the strange looking dishes that a couple of leaf connoisseurs had ordered, I reluctantly pointed to a particular picture of a colourful ensalada and said “Sin pollo, sin carne, sin pescado, sin huevo”. The waitress waited a bit in anticipation of an add-on. My blank face must have told her the story of my tryst with fate. With an apologetic “Sí” the waitress smirked as if I were not the first one to fall for this.
A few trying minutes later, as the dish arrived, colourfully plated with sumptuous quantity of green looking leaves, some cabbage looking vegetable, olives, jalapeños, sliced lemons topped with diced tomatoes and olive oil, my heart skipped a beat. Where were the spices? Didn’t Vasco da Gama discover India centuries ago? What did the world learn? This was bland ‘ghas pus’ for diez mil pesos! Equivalent of a thousand rupees. A thousand rupees! It didn’t help either that ‘mil’ the Spanish word for thousand sounded like I was spending a million pesos on grass and leaves.
After staring at the food for a good five minutes, I grabbed a fork and pierced through the leaf, with clear intent of swallowing whatever sticks to the fork. My pale face of discomfort must have affected other customers too, as they bewilderingly stared at me perhaps taking mental notes of ‘that funny brown guy who struggled eating an ensalada’.
After another thirty minutes of acting to eat, sipping through two glasses of agua sin gas, I almost had the urge to get up and ask for la cuenta, but the Indianness in me asked me to sit quiet. My already churning stomach made a noise that (I swear) sounded like “Don’t waste food, even if it’s ghas phus”.
Also, blood brothers? Vegan must be the half cousin of Vegetarian twice removed, if that makes sense.
And, that is when I had a moment of epiphany. The real Indian in me had arisen from slumber. Through a set of wild gestures I indicated the waitress that I would like the food to packed for take away, only to be handed a box. Fair enough. The waitress must have been bewildered. For, who packs a half eaten, stale ensalada?
In true desi style, I packed the last leaf as well, truly cleaning the entire plate. Having quickly paid for the food, regret and embarrassment, I almost ran home, much to the agony of sedentary muscles in my body that started cursing me from all the lactic acid formation. But I was going to listen to no one.
Just like how Batman flew across in one step in Batcave to get the medicine and inoculate a dying Rachel in Batman Begins, I swung the house door open and reached the kitchen in one step, quickly taking a frying pan in my hands and emptying the salad onto it. The salad started stir frying from the little olive oil and tomatoes, and I sprinkled MDH Masala into the mix, reminding the salad its final destination was not far away.
A few seconds later, as a familiar aroma started filling the room, I felt Indian again.