Life’s lessons as told by an ISKCON thali

Lunch today by #kayteecooks. Was supposed to be gobindobhog rice but she used basmati as my instructions as conveyed by K were lost in translation

It was 1985. Or 86. The skies were coming down. Calcutta was under water. I was at the cusp of my teens. I had a dentist appointment that day. Part of a teeth straightening programme which involved my going to the doc’s every weekend for brace adjustments. My dentists today question whether the job was done right but that’s not moot here.

My mom would take me for these visits. She wasn’t free that day so my grandpa did. We walked from Jayasree to Gachhtala. Took a 41/1 to Rabindra Sadan. Waded through the waters down posh Camac Street to the doctor’s chamber near Minto Park. Dadu was in his late 60s. Not much taller than what I was then. He gamely rolled up his trousers and walked. Holding my hand tightly. His eldest grandchild. Who had recently lost his father.

‘Doctor couldn’t come today. Clinic is shut.’

We didn’t have a phone back then. No way of checking before we had left.

‘Dadu please let’s go to Rim Jhim. It’s close by. Pleeeeease.’

It wasn’t the promise of a chiselled jawline that excited me the most about these trips. It was the dosa and medu vada treat that my mom would take me for after the session that I dreamt of all week. At the South Indian restaurant located close to Calcutta International School, the school I’d left behind, along with the rest of the constellation I was a part of, once my dad passed away. The school has since relocated from the stately British era mansion that housed it. Rim Jhim doesn’t exist anymore. 

‘Bandh hai,’ said a worker from inside the humble eatery which to me was a three Dunlop star back then. He and his colleagues were busy emptying water by the buckets.

It was 1.30 pm. I was hungry. This time for real.

‘Come I’ll take you somewhere,’ said dadu. ‘They will be open.’

‘ISKCON,’ I said incredulously. ‘This is not a restaurant.’

‘Wait and see,’ said dadu with a twinkle in his eyes as he took me to a counter and bought coupons. Apparently you could buy these and have lunch there on Saturdays. I remember that there was dal, rice & ladies fingers. Which was my lunch at home in Mumbai today. Thirty five years later. Hence the story. 

We went to the ISKCON headquarters at Mayapur a year later on a family holiday. Dadu was excited about the food. I made a face when I was told it would be vegetarian. ‘Try it,’ said a kind American in saffron robes and sandalwood teeka. Piping hot luchis, gobindo bhog rice, dal, veggies, chutney, roshogolla. Served to you on banana leaves while you sat on the floor. All grown in the premises. It did taste lovely. 

It was in an ISKCON magazine feature on the food served in there that I learnt at the age of 13 of shukto’s role as an appetiser. 

Eat local & seasonal, go back to your roots, zero waste, farm to table. Buzzwords now. Beliefs that existed forever if we were willing to see. Values which my generation needs to relay to the ones that follow. Paying our debt of gratitude to our elders in the process. It’s the cycle of life.

When I think back to those years, it’s easy to remember what was going on in my head. The grown ups had cushioned my little brother and me from the tragedy we had just experienced. For me it was all an adventure. 

How did they feel about it I wonder. What was going on in my dadu’s head for example? 

To tell you that, I have to turn into a novelist from a diary-ist as dadu is no more. It was his birth anniversary on the first of November. He was the one who made me fall in love with books. My first step to becoming a writer.