Puk Puk Pukaak

I am a vegetarian.

By choice.

I used to eat non-veg as a kid, but gave it up when I was 11.
("Is this the real life ?")
My whole family(barring one sister) eats non-veg.
("Is this just fantasy?")
I just stopped liking the taste.
(Death by Bohemian Rhapsody)
And I am married to a Bengali.
(!!!)

You can understand how my food preferences make for such convenient conversation topics. Combining this vegetarianism with my inability to drink alcohol, I am the ultimate empty intersection set in the office party Venn diagram. But more food for me, so I am not complaining :)

I was happily living a meatless existence till holy matrimony happened and I saw, what can only be described as the ‘other end of the spectrum’. That made me safely conclude that my husband was brought up with love, compassion and a steady daily dosage of fish. So his choice of a life partner, who is a vegetarian was all at once inconvenient(for him) and surprising(for ANYONE who knows him).

Living in with your spouse comes with new and funny revelations. For me, it was the discovery that he was so used to eating non-veg, that his heart would pine for that dead bird with a passion so strong, that it scared me a bit. On many(most) days, he would come home and let out a sound not that different from the aforementioned bird’s mating call and things would move very quickly from ‘I feel like having some chicken’ to ‘I cannot exist on this planet a moment longer unless I eat some of that glorious meat’. Smartphones would be taken out and orders would be placed and a greased up masala heavy dish would be delivered home in no time.

It did not help matters when it was discovered that the nearest KFC would lovingly take the order and deliver that fried ‘thing’ (it is technically no longer chicken anymore) to our doorstep even if we were out of cash! Yes, they would bring along a card reader and fill every inch of our dining table with buckets full of fried food. Why plural? Because they always had some offer like Wondrous Wednesdays or what not and even logical thinking, that it wasn’t possible for a single human to consume so much food, would crumble under the might of ‘but offer pe tha’.

I could almost picture the slimy greasy curry entering his bloodstream and then becoming a thick coagulated mass. It pained me to no end, so much so that I decided to take matters into my own hand. I had seen my mom do it many times and it looked like a lot of work. The chicken would take way too much time to cook and the fish would fill the house with a smell so strong that I had to study in the garden. But love makes you do foolish things.
My initial adventures with non-veg cooking threw up some unique sights and sounds(sharing them below) that I wish I could Ghajini away, but nope, they have been singed onto my brain cells for eternity.

1. Nazarein
That fish is dead. But it is looking at you, judging you for separating it from its family. Those eyes do follow you, as you take it and plonk it in your sink, trying to wash away the fish smell (hahahahah). And then you decide to just do the deed and push that knife edge in that small crevice, half expecting the eye to gently roll out or worse, spring back at your face. But there is a worse third option, wherein the knife breaks that thin membrane and pokes the iris and to your horror you discover it is some black dense mitti like substance that makes a khich khich sound. Eeks. Let’s try the other one...this must be the bad eye. The second one fares better but you find that there is a small strand of flesh connecting the eyeball to the body that refuses to break.By now you have given up on the task of de-eyeing the fish altogether and called the husband in with a ‘if you want to eat it then you only clean it’ threat. But those eyes keep staring at you till the time they are deposited in the dustbin.

2. Laal Salaam
You know there will be blood. But so much blood! You rinse and you rinse but the what works for your clothes, doesn’t necessarily work for your poultry. You #trymybest and add some red chilli powder in the marinade to confuse yourself. But when that chicken receives the gentle love of heat, it all comes oozing out again. After some time, there forms a boil, which pulsates with a sick rhythm, everytime adding a small amount of red liquid (at this stage, who knows what it is) into the red curry. I mean it is icky, but I take solace in the knowledge, I won’t be eating that anyway!

3. Extra Stuff
My very first chicken came covered in white substances. I proceeded to meticulously remove each bit of that wriggly bit thinking it is non-essential but mostly because it looked disgusting and it stuck to my fingers in a weird way. It took a lot of time and effort and I was later told it was merely ‘fat’. ‘I won’t feed my husband fat ‘was the second thought that came to my mind right after ‘that is what fat looks like!’. You see I was making non-veg the way I would make my veg-bare minimum oil and masala. The whole point of home cooking was healthy eating anyway. But it was too tedious and was then left on the dead chicken thereafter to ‘add to the taste’.

4. What is That?
Never ask this question because you don’t want to hear the answers.
‘Oh that is just the liver’
‘Do you want to eat this chicken's liver’?
‘Why not’?
You also get pinkish reddish stomach bits and my favourite-the bone pipe. Till date I don’t know what that part is or does. It is a small penne pasta shaped bony piece that refuses to be yanked out of the flesh and is apparently not connected to any other bone parts. There is also the case of that black mass of pure badboo that lies inside a fish’s stomach and/or head. Is it poop? Is it eggs? I don’t want to know.

After many unsuccessful attempts by my own family and in-laws to kick start my journey back to eating animals and birds, I am at peace with being a vegetarian who cooks non-veg. But icky misadventures in the kitchen regularly threaten my commitment. Tab tak koshish jaari rahegi.

*lots of birds and animals were harmed during the writing of this post.