Tiffin Box

I’m an extremist, is what I’ve discovered after  travelling down the memory lane today and finding one peculiar incident which I had not thought of anytime after its occurrence . On being asked any questions about me, my mother has always said that I was a very naughty child.  However I really am not. Trust me, I never bullied anyone or otherwise. I always wanted to do something and ended up doing something else ,now that isn’t naughty. I still do not know moderate and which is why I end up doing something unplanned.

As a child, I had a lot of food tantrums. I did not eat any vegetable. All I wanted was fish. Owing to which I was very thin. I was almost convinced by my brother that I was an anorexic and was going to die soon. School recess hence was something that I never enjoyed because I never liked most of the food which my mom used to pack. I always left it half eaten. Every day in the evening my mom used to yell at me emptying the half-empty tiffin into the dust bin.

One fine day on my way to school, I, along with a few friends tricked my nanny with the view of troubling her and ran into an unusual lane. Seeing the nanny run behind us everybody increased their speed to extract more fun until I discovered none of my friends or my nanny behind me and saw myself standing in a strange lane. I did not panic.

I remembered the most irritating phase of my life- when I’d go out with my mother to meet our long lost relatives locating whom was a task my mother mastered at. FYI My mother used to introduce them to me saying, “Remember, we’d met XYZ  at ABC place”. Initially I used to produce a question mark expression which was later modified into a fake shrug/smile.

I, kind of having unofficially assisted my mother at location hunting, very well knew the drill.  I, a 7 year old could just make out who would help me out with the correct directions to my school and who wouldn’t. I felt very independent as I made my way towards my school. I was a minute away from school at the cross road, when the vehicles from the left side were released and  the crossing signal turned red; I was forced to halt. Cursing the traffic signal I looked at the left side.

 As the vehicles passed by I saw an old woman sitting on the opposite footpath all by herself. Something within me prompted me to go and see that woman. Maybe , it was my curiosity backed by her image being disturbed by the passing vehicles. May be I wanted to see her face. May be....

 As the signal turned green and all the vehicles stopped I ran to see the old woman.

 Her skin was containing over a million wrinkles ; it was the first thing I noticed in her. She reminded me of those anorexic faces my brother scared me away with. Within a fraction of a second I thought of her to be an anorexic and the immediate word that I associated with anorexic- food;prompted me to open my tiffin box.

 I was devastated to see what I saw then….. PRAWNS RICE!  After 3 months of the holy period and back to back Gods and their reincarnations’ birthday celebrations that doomed my fish craving, my mother had given my favourite delicacy.