ZEN

Vailopalli Sreedhara Menon  the renowned poet of Kerala sang, “Bandhura kanchana kootilanengilum, bandhanam bandhanam thanne paaril”!!!  It loosely means that a life of (plenty) even if incarcerated in a gilded cage is yet a life of incarceration. I now, over the past few weeks have begun to realize that there can be exceptions to the adage the poet wrote. Because I’m in the past three weeks relishing a life though not interned by any means but grounded by my own volition; not a life indulgent and sumptuous. I joked to C that it is a refugee status. She was a shade offended, I presume.

So it will be until a while (I guess) I will be with my mother and indulging rather gauchely in gastronomic plenty. The plentifulness of taste - those dishes that leave a lingering aroma, smack and atmosphere that it stays in you even long after many moons and all have faded. I do not think that one should believe in niceties and hold back when enwrapped by food that can entice you to live another day only that so you could have more of it. Food, that is simple and unpretentious, but makes you lean sideways to guess if it was made in heaven. So I devour them and ravenously.

An unexpected twist of events!

“Gastronomic plenty” may be a phrase that may be quite misleading. Because often it is like we miss the wood for the trees. Not that I have been through famine all these days leading up to now, nor is it now vulgar indulgence in regal and princely food. It is simple and bare food made at home and which is in the menu of any ordinary people. But the gilded difference is it is being prepared by someone special, someone who has the uncanny knack of adding drops of ambrosia into each little dish prepared and that makes the food exceptional at that.

So here I’m virtually flying thrice each day to paradise after passionately eating food cooked by her. And after every meal I’m content and at peace, Zen like, that would not mind even falling dead.

And, I stay embattled in the battle of the bulge.