My exams got over today. And all that orgy of midnight cuppas and slogging round the clock for weeks has left me in quite a bad shape.
The tension builds before the exam, chews the head slowly during the exams and then, in the final stages, it intersects and permeates normal life. Bloody hell!
Even people alien to the kitchen could tell when the onions have sautéed enough. So you expect a student with a year’s cooking experience, such as myself, to know the timeline of the change from raw white-green to the mild initial levels of sauté brown. Unfortunately for the onions and later my tongue, I wasn’t sure of those initial levels. Brown enough? Not yet..a little more,…probably now, but oops, isn’t that a tinge of black? Charred ‘em a bit! Blame the exams.
The only thing I was looking forward to before the exams was to fly home to good ol’ Madras once the exams were done and eat all the pongal vada chutney sambhar, chaat and vada pav. Food was the only thought practical to a tongue that hadn’t greeted any spice for many weeks. It should be. Now I was contemplating if I’d fallen prey to lust and desire (stop thinking of the bed, I’m still in the kitchen) and if I should get wiser after compensating many addictions of my tongue. It’s the exams.
It isn’t necessarily an awkward moment when you hopelessly choose the same beer as your mate in the next chair when the barman looks at you. But it sure is when you start thinking why you couldn’t home in on one, instead of enjoying the beer being sipped. ‘I’ll go with a Guinness as well’..now what could’ve possibly made me say that?
I mentally skip past the images of the ones I’d classified not worthy of drinking to enjoy. Most big labels come under that. Becks and Carlsberg are probably reserved for supporting the football and racing teams they support, too commercial to taste good otherwise. Heineken, …well, it’s are just everywhere, on the flight and even in the worst pubs..that again proves it’s too commercial to taste good. Cobra doesn’t taste any special. Castle Lager, Kingfisher and Stella Artois are the only of the actually good big tags but the pub hasn’t got them. They have Fosters, VB and Tooheys instead, which follow the same track as Heineken and Carlsberg.
And all that while sipping the Guinness which I’d ordered impulsively triggered by my neighbour. It’s the exams.
The only thing I was looking forward to before the exams was to fly home to good ol’ Madras once the exams were done and eat all the pongal vada chutney sambhar, chaat and vada pav. Food was the only thought practical to a tongue that hadn’t greeted any spice for many weeks. It should be. Now I was contemplating if I’d fallen prey to lust and desire (stop thinking of the bed, I’m still in the kitchen) and if I should get wiser after compensating many addictions of my tongue. It’s the exams.
About that Pongal Vadai, when Facebook offered profile name choices, four of my friends thought Pongal Vada Iyer would be the most apt anonymous name. I didn’t like being anonymous though!
This might sound sacrilegious but enjoying Kingfisher is more of Nationalistic pride these days. Not that it isn’t any good, it actually is..but there are better and I hope I have not let my India down with that more than United Breweries.
and for all those people in India and Europe who feel Fosters is ‘Australian for Beer’, please liquidate such ideas. If you do come down here for a holiday and wish to taste famous Aussie beer, I’d reckon you go in for Coopers’ Sparkling Ale or Little Creatures Pilsener.
and apologies if you’re not much of a beer person for this post might have been too dry to gulp!
and apologies also if I’d been irregular in dropping by to my regular readers’ pages for the past two weeks. It’s the exams. Will drop by first thing in the morning!
back to India on Sunday, beloved Madras beckons. See you tweeps and bloggers there!

















