The ban!

We were in our secondary school when the wave of Chinese food (India Chinese, all red and fiery) hit the populace. Every second street had a street vendor selling Chinese food. Like everyone else, we too were totally taken in by this trend. 

We would save our pocket money to buy Triple Schezwan Rice. It had everything we loved about Chinese food—red gravy, dumplings, noodles, rice, fried noodles and generous portions. One dish was enough to feed us three sisters! 

We would love the days we would cross the public garden in front of our house to go to the street where the vendor had his stall. However, we had not contended with our dad. He read somewhere that ajinomoto (which was then used in the cuisine) caused brain tumour! And there is no one more overprotective than our mother hen of a dad. Alarmed, he immediately put a ban on Chinese food.

We discussed the unfairness of this in outraged whispers and decided that we had to have our dose of our favourite food. Even if we had to smuggle it in! From that day onwards, we would wait till dark had fallen. Then, two of us would go to buy the Triple Schezwan, drop it casually in the balcony while the third secreted it away under the sofa in the hall. That done, we would wait for our folks to go off to sleep and then quietly pull out the much-anticipated treat and share it on smuggled plates. The joy of the food was doubled by its being forbidden of course. :D We would try to muffle our giggles as we tiptoed to the kitchen to wash the vessels, so that everything looked just so the next morning.

This went on for some time and Dad remained blissfully unaware. Then one day, when we had made plans to eat Chinese, we discovered we couldn’t use the balcony as usual. So, it was decided that the smugglers would hand over the package to the inside person through the window in the hall.

Now this seemed like a lot of daring to me. What if Dad caught us? Knowing the ‘what ifs’ that my imagination could send me on, my sisters decided to be the ones to go get the treat. I was to be the lookout. They set out and I watched them cross the garden from the balcony. Imagine my horror when I saw Dad walking towards them from the opposite end! It was dark and my sisters spunky, so they quickly ducked away from the main path and sat on two garden chairs in the shadow of a tree.

Oblivous, my dad passed them by. I heaved a sigh. Then began the wait. My sisters were taking too long. Dad had finished his evening prayers and as was his wont, he was now praying to every diety in the house which included a small idol in the hall. Mindful of the mosquitoes, he had also closed the hall window, yes the same window through which the goods were to be smuggled in!

I sat stiff with fear on the sofa hoping against hope that my sisters would see the closed window and device another plan. But that’s when it came. *Tap tap tap* I squeezed my eyes shut. The idiots! Did they want to be caught?! Dad was right there, taking his time with his prayers. I thought if I ignored the tapping, my sisters would catch a clue. But no. My darling sisters continued tapping on the window.

Exasperated by the disturbance, my dad finally opened the window only to get the shock of his life when he was handed the parcel of Chinese food with an angry question, “What took you so long?” Then there was pin-drop silence as my sisters realized who they had handed the parcel to.

Angrily, Dad kept the parcel on the dining table and resumed his prayers. Dad had a rule about not speaking when he prays and that made the wait for the explosion even worse. My sisters silently entered the house and no one said a word. But there was no explosion. After Dad had finished his prayers, he calmly and firmly said, “Do not bring this food into the house again.” We nodded and ate the food in the hall, feeling scared, abashed and yet too shameless to waste the treat. 

From that day onward… we got better at smuggling in Chinese food without getting caught. :P

Image Courtesy: <a href='https://www.freepik.com/photos/food'>Food photo created by jcomp - www.freepik.com</a>