Old Was New

Old Was New

4 mins
8.8K


The first major trip in my life was the one to Shimla, with my parents, during summer vacation while I was studying in class 3, in the year of 1999.

We had travelled by Kalka mail express train. I still remember the feeling of adventure as we had stepped down at the station. I had spent months before that imagining and drawing what a hill station would look and feel like! Those days we didn't have online hotel bookings. Dad used to check out accommodation and routes from a thick bound book called "Bhraman Sangi" ( meaning, Tour Companion) that used to have travel details, suggestions, hotel and holiday home lists...basically, a travel guide. He had chosen a place called Shimla Kali Bari for our stay.

I still remember very well, the amazing taste of egg curry that they used to provide there, along with hot chappatis smeared with ghee! My mother's recipe of egg curry had always been my favorite. But there was something very mesmerizing in that simple, hot egg curry served amidst the silent hills.

From Shimla we had visited Manali. There used to be a big, well maintained dharamshala where we used to frequently go for breakfast and lunch. Since I was a kid, and I was having fever for the initial couple of days at Manali, my mom would often ask them to provide a glass of milk during breakfast. Till date, I'm not sure if they used to add any flavour to that milk... or if it was the feeling of having a hot glass of rejuvenating drink amidst the pine trees, that made me wait eagerly for the glass to arrive. Almost two decades have passed since then. Among the crowd of slim milk and tetra packs I still look for that taste. Then, for lunch, we would have parathe. That was the first time in my life I was having proper North Indian aloon k parathe with achaar. The experience was so unearthly that I was sad about leaving Manali, to go ahead for our next destination.

While travelling from Manali to Manikaran by bus, the passengers were asked to take a break at a big Punjabi style dhaba. We bought a mixture of boondi and small versions of gulab jamun. I've never been a person with sweet tooth. But that was one sweet dish that I probably felt was close to what ambrosia would have tasted like. We also bought strawberries on the way. They were fresh, large, and the taste was something I was getting introduced to for the first time in my life. The very realization that something, some fruit, naturally so delicious with a serene mix of sweet and sour did really exist on earth... made me happy.

I have had strawberries at various places after that. Specially having stayed in Pune and Mumbai, I have had freshly plucked strawberries from the farms in Mahabaleshwar. But I don't get that taste anymore. These strawberries are probably more fresh and more carefully grown than the ones I had had on my way to Manikaran. But it was probably the fact that I was having them for the first time in my life, that had added the charm!

By this 28th year of my life, I have had aloo parathe so many times that I'm almost bored of them. I'm tired of looking for that taste, that goosebumps that I had got while having the very first bite of it sitting in Manali. I am as usual a non-appreciator of sweets and milk..so I don't even expect to find that kind of boondi-with-gulab jamun or thrilling glass of milk. Then I realized.... I can never have that taste again. More than the food items... it was the curiosity of the child in me, that made the boondi, gulab jamun and even the plain white milk so delicious. The very first experience of having those otherwise - common food items , with the Himalayas creating the ambience that no man-made restaurant could match, is not going to get repeated in my life any more.

The only way to come close to having that experience is to travel more.... so that I can have new cuisines in new environments. Although my now-matured taste buds won't be as thrilled on receiving new food items, as they had gotten back then.... because they are experienced with a wide variety of tastes by now, still; at least every now and then they can have relatable experience.... be it having a boiling hot daal with Pahadi Roti sitting atop the Tunganath mountain, shivering in cold; or having Malnad style chicken among the rains and greens of Chikmagalur; or even the bland Chicken gyro on the streets of NYC that my fellow Indians would not even like to look at. Half the charm of food lies in combining it with the newness of the surrounding.... that's what brings me somewhat closer to my childhood experience.


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