Roadie Foodie

What is it about the road side food that would make you abandon your hygienically cooked and packed homemade lunch for adulterated masalas, cheap cooking oil and questionable fingers?

Just ate a yummilicious portion of Channa Kulcha from a roadside vendor. My absolute favorite roadie foodie, I think I ODed on it way back in college, and still I stop and buy a plate if I spot the large brass handi on the back of a cycle. My second absolute favorite roadie foodie is Aloo Tikki. I luuuurrrvvvveeee alooooo, I can devour boiled potatoes faster than you can say ubla-aloo and happily die of glutinous choking, I kid you not! Take boiled potatoes and fry them in oil... ooooh *shivers* such unhealthy desires canNOT be good fer moi. I make yummilicious bread-rolls (yes I have documented, recorded testimonial... though it cannot be shared with the public yet) stuffed with potatoes and cheese, deep fried and generously doused with sriracha sauce. Bliss.

I have lots of absolute favorite roadie foodies, but while I'm typing this out, a very special one is tugging my memory, pleading to be acknowledged. The humble Sundal, served with pulip-maangaa... ayyomaa... LOVE it. I can taste it right now, walking on the beach, the rogue crows cawing out warnings as they swoop down and pinch morsels off your hand, the waves surging in and out, spraying my face with salty shivers, the scent of the damp newspaper cone the lad wraps my sundal in, chewing slowly savoring the pebbly texture of the lentil and the tarty bite of the mango... miss you so much.

Ohhhh wait. How did I forget VADA PAV!!! Man, I bullied Shool into carrying a serving for me in his cabin baggage when he came down from Bom to Del. HeeHee. I went CRAZEE, dying to taste it last year, looking it up on youtube videos, pretending I could taste the yeasty pav and the hot corriander sauce. *slurppp* I, of course, threw the vada stuffing cause I have weird issues about stuffings and whats acceptable for my mouth, and ate just the crispy batter skin.

Many a times have forced Navinji to eat my insipid lunch while I ordered something heavily drenched in chilly and oil. But with progressing age, my cast iron stomach is rusting. Not a pretty feeling next morning, no siree. :P

Monsters

I was cruising a "green" site, looking for organic products and if I can have them shipped here and I spotted this picture of a dog that appeared to have no forelegs with a caption, "If this was your dog, how much would you pay to save her?". I assumed it was for her operation or something so I clicked on it.

I so wish I had not. And I am so fucking mad that WE ARE SO FUCKING SCREWED UP THAT WE NEED TO TORTURE LIL ANIMALS FOR FUCKING WHAT!???? That dog had her forelegs twisted back and tied behind her back, with a rusted tin can shoved over her muzzle, hung by her hind legs and would whimper in unimaginable pain till she would be slaughtered cruelly for her meat and sold to the illegal dog meat trade in Korea.

I haven't been able to sleep or eat since yesterday and I'm left with such rage and pain that I don't know what to do with. No amount of petitions and donations are going to be enough to educate these fucking barbarians that you do NOT need to torture these animals to eat them. Why the fuck can't they just kill them and be done with it, WHY THE FUCK do you have to come up with these sickening methods to torture and hurt these unfortunate animals.

I'm against killing for meat, not because I think eating meat is wrong. It's not, eat and stuff yourself silly but pls be MODERATE in your quantity and pls be HUMANE with your methods of slaughter. Is that really too much to ask? Apparently it is. We humans do not know how to live till we have fucking maimed, bled, bludgeoned, raped and tortured another living being who cannot defend itself against our depravity. I admit it hits me harder cause it was a dog. But I have given up meat, cause even though I love dogs and I do not necessarily love chickens, I still cannot stand the fact that a chicken is stuffed in tiny cages with 10 other chickens and they are given literally shit to eat or drink, kept in that tiny cage for life till it is ready to be slaughtered. How can you eat that? How can you stuff your face with that and go Ohhh! yummy Chicken Tikkas!? HOW?

Everytime this topic comes up with friends and family and they all go... you cannot change the world, you cannot always take care of these things, you cannot convince everyone, whoever wants to eat will eat regardless... hmmmm I do agree, I cannot change the world, I cannot change my own friends and family how can I expect to change the world... BUT I can change myself cause I have the power over my will and I can control that. And hope that by example I can influence someone else to change as well. I hope that someone would care enough to go and find out where you can buy free-range chicken from, where you can buy organic eggs and milk from, the butcher you buy mutton and keema from is licensed and practices the humane method of slaughter and if he doesn't you'd care enough to report him.Since I'm on a roll, I'm hoping that someone would care enough not just about themselves BUT for the earth as well and buy cruelty-free vegan personal products so that we reduce the chemical footprint on mother nature and its inhabitants.

I also got to thinking, that given the opportunity we'd soon start eating lil human babies (some parts of this world already do eat fetuses) and start seeing yummy human tikkas on our menus. Cause we eat everything else you can imagine. With the abundance of chicken and goat you'd think we don't need to kill dogs and cats, but hey! why not... meat is meat right? How does it matter that for me I keep your delicacy as a pet and shower love and affection on it and you torture it before killing it?

Matters to me though, but its not enough. I do not have an army, or mountains of money to buy an army or a government to put an end to this turpitude. I sign petitions and speak up on forums and I try and educate others... but it's NOT enough cause it's just me and there are too many of you out there. Too many of you who don't give a shit, who cannot be bothered with chickens and goats and dogs, too many of you who have way too many excuses. Do even half of you and the other half of who you know, know how that the shampoo you love from L'Oreal/Clinique etc was tested on a rabbit? How they pumped its stomach full with it and watched it suffer over a period of days so that YOU could pretend your shiny hair is equivalent to a halo?

Sickens me. My heart bleeds for that dog, who is probably dead by know and thousands like her will die before I'm done posting this. But the world will not change, the world will not look for free-range chickens, the world cannot bother itself to feed a cow well and let her nurse her young before you milk her to death to feed millions of monsters, the world doesn't give 2 hoots for the cat that's hung on a peg and skinned alive for his fur, the world will continue to poach and wipe species out, the world thinks going organic and cruelty-free is too much hassle, the world stinks.

Whatever

Weirdly enough I wanted another journal. Go figure.