Im a cold blooded person. Literally. No. Not cold blooded as in a cold blooded murderer. I simply seem to have cold blood.

Or mebbe Im using the wrong word in this context. What Im actually intending to say is I seem to be cold insensitive. Did not actually realize it till today.

After spending a substantial part of my life in the hot tropics of India, my cold insensitivity actually seems a bit odd. Odd, my foot. Its down right abnormal. In the part of India where I hail from, there are three climate ... normally they range in between being hot, hotter, and hottest. I come from that land of eternal summer, Tamil Nadu.

Now, when u take a native of this heat oven called Tamil Nadu and plant him in the US during a cold winter, what do u expect? He would freeze. Obviously. But why that isnt happening to me, I dont know..

The point in case. Ever since winter started here, I have been by and large avaoiding the use of my winterwear. Found them very cumbersome. And it wasnt all that cold. Or so I thought.

Today morning, after a painful night out, I decided it was time for a break. So made a line to the nearest McDonalds. A 10 minute walk. The time was about 5:30 AM .. It was a bit colder than normal, but still nothing freezing .. I was clad in a half hand dirty T-shirt, an even dirtier old Jeans and a pair of chappals.

On my way I saw a bunch of these Americans giving me some funny stares. "Must be my face", I thought. Then after a rather hearty early Morning breakfast of Cakes, pies and coffee, i made my way back to the lab.

Now some of the Americans on the road were giving me even funnier stares. Now I was puzzled. One of the guys eventually made his way to me, and asked, "Where is your jacket? Arent you wearing your winter wear?".

"No. It is isnt that cold, is it??", I said. Now there are very few words in the English language to describe the emotion that crossed the man's face when he heard this. It is the kind of emotion that you have when an alien from Mars jumps right in front of you and asks you for a few quarters.

The man carried on and went on his way ... "No, it isnt just my face", I realized. The difference I noticed was the fact that all these guys on the road were wearing a Jacket, a winter cap, fur coated shoes and thick gloves, over and on top of their normal attrire.

In effect, on a relative scale, I had been running around more or less naked on the American roads. Now I was piqued. "Is it really that cold?" I had to find out.

I guess you could say it was. When i finally reached back the lab, I found that the temperature on the roads was about -2 degree celsius. Yeah. Minus Two degree celsius.

Now I think I understand the funny stare that I received on the roads. It is the same kind of stare that you have when you are gazing at a humped rhinocerous, behind cages, in your nearby zoo. And in the meantime, Im trying to see how somebody from a land of eternal summer adapt easily to -2 degrees. Beats me. Its one of those oddities of nature. For now, Im enjoying the cold winds ..

Cheers
Vishy.

Ever since I moved base from my original rural, semi-urban cities of residence to what we could term as the “cosmopolitan” regions of India, and this move was at least 10 years ago, I have always been fascinated by this obsession “the city” people have with spoons. Of all things that the Indian culture has absorbed and assimilated into its complex fabric from the West, the spoon is probably the strangest of things.

I don’t claim to know why spoons came into being in the first place. Let alone knives, forks and the rest of the cutlery family. But my strong guess is, the spoons/forks/knives we use in our tables today are a hangover from our primitive past. Long long ago, so long ago that our ancestors hadn’t yet discovered fire, and cooking was still a few centuries away, due to lack of any other option, our ancestors would have had to eat their meat, vegetables and fruits in their raw state.

Now, I don’t know if you are familiar with the nuances of non-vegetarian food, but there’s one basic thing you should know. Eating uncooked, raw meat is not fun. No sir. Not fun at all. And our primitive ancestors are likely to have discovered this at great cost, after a significant number of trials and errors. My premise is that the world’s first spoons and other assorted table cutlery were invented in this context. The knife would have been to cut the meat, the spoon would have been to prevent the hand from getting soiled with the blood from the freshly cut meat, and the fork would have had the dual purpose of supporting the spoon as well as for the nasty task of picking your teeth after an especially sticky meal of wild boar meat and raw unripe tomatoes.

Now, while several other traditions seem to have died on their way to the 21st century, this painful tradition of table cutlery seems to have stuck on. And not only has it just stuck on, but it also seems to have spread from the more primitive Western and East Asian cultures to the more sophisticated and advanced Indian civilization. The Eastern culture?? Yeah. Chopsticks are but a more contorted, more sadistic twist to the spoons. While the spoons trace their origins to the Ape Men of and older era, the chopstick is a recent innovation. It is likely to have emerged only when the mongoloid races realized that a chop stick helps in savoring delicacies such as Dog eye Jelly, Wolf Wings and Cat Leg Masala.

The saddest of these facts is that these stupid spoons and chopsticks seem to have gotten a “status value” attached to them. Bull. A big load of bull. There are, of course, a few situations when the spoon does have its use. For example, when you are handling steaming hot stuff the spoon may be a handy thing to have. As several scientists have pointed out in numerous research journals in the past, the human tongue can handle much more heat than the human hand. And with this in mind, when you are about to take some absolutely steaming hot Hyderabadi Biriyani, and you don’t want to run the risk of burning your precious soft hands, you may want to have your spoons with you as a defense. But that still isn’t a strong enough excuse to use a spoon.

Apart from this one exception, I don’t find any practical value to the spoon at all. The human system hasn’t been designed with spoon compatibility in mind. The Lord Almighty seems to have known such things well before he designed the first Homo sapiens. The primary human energy input channel, that is, the human mouth, isn’t designed to eat from a spoon. The spoon serves food in such a ridiculously low quantity that, it would never be enough to satisfy all the taste buds that you have been blessed with in your oral region. Now, from an operations efficiency perspective, your taste sensory system would be running grossly under capacity. Finance pros might recognize this as a classic example of asset utilization levels running dangerously low in the oral sensory system.

The Western civilization seems to be slowly coming into grips with this earth shattering fact of life. In recognition of this truth, the West seems to be designing bigger and bigger burgers, tacos and sandwiches, that are designed to occupy a greater region of your mouth than a spoon could ever possibly dream to. It is high time that we in India, stop our west-driven fascination for the cutlery culture.

Now, what exactly is the alternative? Obvious, isn’t it? Eat with your hands. We Indians have been the pall-bearers of the tradition of eating with our own hands. We cant let so rich a tradition die so easy a death.

Eat with all the five fingers of your primary (left/right) hand. Now to understand the true pleasure of natural, hand-eating, you must try watching a Core Tam guy enjoying his Thayir Sadam with Avakkai Pickles on the side. It would indeed be sad if you haven’t been able to witness this extremely delightful miracle of a thing.

Eating curd rice with your hands is an act of divine ecstasy. Your first touch of the sticky curd spread over the rice …. The cosmic dance of your fingers while mixing the curd and the rice together ….. The first feel of the electric pickle on your tongue, as you place one pickle-dipped finger over it … The act is not over just there, not yet. The grand finale to this unique spectacle is the finger licking ceremony. Indeed, no curd rice eating experience can be complete without the connoisseur licking every single rice particle off his fingers (and sometimes, his palm). Ah, such simple yet fascinating pleasures that life has to offer ..

No sir .... definitely no … I don’t need a spoon for my curd rice… Or any rice for that matter .. Im happy with my own fingers. And I intend to enjoy the pleasure of messing my food with my own fingers as long as possible .. And I suggest, as a rational, conscientious, nationalistic, culturalistic, proud Indian, you too do the same.

Ciao,
Vishy.