Romancing with food

 

Well, this episode is from the last Mathura journey. We are travelling in the early morning bus to the holy place. It’s quite dark at six in the morning. There is a little halt at Ballabhgarh to allow new passengers to board.

It’s also the time for some to relieve themselves almost inside the sheds of a makeshift vegetable market where there will be a buzzing market after an hour or so. Many passengers go and look around for a little space to squirt jets of extra water in the bladder onto the heaps of garbage lying in open just behind the empty vegetable market.

But the best use of time is effected by a passenger, a thickset man in late thirties. He also goes down and comes back with a disposable bowl full of piping hot gulab jamuns. He carries the air of an eager boy looking forward to an early extra-sweet breakfast. The cold, staid interior of the bus is sweetened to the core as the vapors from the heap of sweetmeats and his slightly embarrassed smile infuse the chilly air with love, harmony, peace, food, smile. 

The man appears a cute gentle giant. ‘Let this silly world get anxious about big things and get diabetes even with salty samosas. Here I’m enjoying my life in this little world with my gulab jamuns,’ he seems to exult.

He has a horse-like mane at the back of neck but his crop is thinning at the top.

Here he arrives with his little mound of hot shiny gulab jamuns and scans the seats for a suitable place to enjoy his early morning food. It turns a sweeter world with his sugary appearance.

A nice start of the day beginning with the worship of stomach to be followed by worshiping Radha-Krishna in spirituality-smitten Vrindavan. What a sweet man! An embarrassed smile conveying a simplicity lying in a big mound in this man who looks all of heart and hospitality.

From all angles, he looks a person who is not affected by everyday annoyances. A sweet man carrying robustly sculpted taste for sweetmeats. I would always welcome such sweetened souls rather than acrid thugs high on the steroids of power, wealth, influence and dominance.