The Tandoori Chicken Story
I shall call it the tandoori chicken story.
The year is 1977. I work in a semi-government. organization in Guwahati. After all deductions, my take-home pay is rupees eight hundred fifty or thereabouts. Towards the end of every month, I borrow some money from friends and return it promptly on the first of the month when I receive my salary. I am always late in paying my monthly rent of rupees four hundred. We are a happy family ---- my wife and our two daughters. We lead a very normal life as all our friends do.
This is before the advent of broiler chicken that will soon revolutionalize the eating habits of a generation. The local chickens as they are called are small in size, high in cost; only to be eaten as a special treat. Every Sunday morning, I go to the market and buy two small chickens so that we can have a leg each. Sometimes, a friend of our younger daughter, who lives across the street, drops in and stays for lunch. Either my wife or I let go of a leg of chicken.
Our elder daughter is seven and the younger one five. Till date, they have not eaten tandoori chicken. Actually, they don’t even know what it is like not having seen one. We decide it is time to introduce them to tandoori chicken before there is some social embarrassment.
A year later, we are in Bahrain. I walk with my daughters to the nearby Pakistani grill to buy tandoori chicken. Huge, succulent pieces of chicken burn in the skewer over the charcoal. I get two of them. I think two are enough for the four of us. It is another year before I can bring myself to buy four.
I try telling this story to my daughters now. They do not remember and laugh it away.