Aaaj Kya Khaauuuuuuuuun ?

(means- What should I eat today?)

Oh man..!! as the day nears its end this question starts screaming in my head!! I can't work, I can't think...(not that I think otherwise ;) ) while trying to find an answer for it!

Cup noodles, bread and eggs, rice noodles, soup and rice, bread and soup....are the permutaions and combinations I can come up with three favourite items of mine : eggs, bread, and noodles!! Obviously, it is self explanatory that I don't know to cook, and more specifically, dont want to cook or like to cook! I hate it! The thought of cooking maximizes my laziness and minimizes my ability to do anything. It gives me tension. I have friends for whom cooking is a relaxation!!

My sincere "bows" to them...I don't know how they do it. According to me they surely are a different and more evolved subspecies of anthropods !

For instance now, instead of cribbing and blogging about cooking I can very well cook..but its so boring! Although I always enjoy food cooked by others.....be it tea, or even toasted bread! Anything cooked by anybody else is a welcome :) I know that this attitude sucks, but thats me! I can provide all my mental, emotional, physical, and technical support to somebody who wants to cook. But, somehow they never work on me.....And at times when I decide to cook after gathering all my conc. and motivation, either I end up blowing off the preassure cooker, or starting the smoke alarm, or burning whatever I was trying to cook! So cooking sucks!

The other problem with me is, that besides being lazy, and knowing to cook, I should know...what I want to eat, right. I lack variability in that too. How do I come up with something exciting or interesting to eat 7 days in a week! I cannot! Eating weekly once cooked food is unhealthy and I get bored...So I decided ok, weekly twice. Unfortunately I could not keep up with it, with my three favourite variables! Not to mention, the instances of experiments with above and some additional ingradients! They are a perfect self-repellant! I never enter the kitchen for atleast a week after my experiments!

I never ever thought that cooking would bring such a threat to my peace of mind! And the worst part is YOU HAVE TO THINK OF IT EVERY DAY!!! aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhh....!!

Having grown up in a boarding (hostel) I never had to bother about food. Mess, Food coupon, all took care of it. All I had to do was pay a bill by the end of the month! So you pay a cost for not having to worry about it. Instead pay somebody else for worrying about it and cooking for you :), and many like you...(the entire hostel, ward, dorm..). At home, my beloved mom and brother was there to take away that worry. They enjoy cooking and both are wonderful cooks. I miss it. My dad would mostly be helping them, and I would be pretending to help. I remember my mom would ask me to do something, which I will do at my own pace. Eventually she will grab it back from me, as she would need the potates or onions cut or peeled within certain time while cooking. I don't know why they worry so much about timing! Whats there in timing...after all everything needs to go into the pan. So why not dump everything together....and cook it all at once...why follow a time series...???

Being slow, during those days was subjective...to what program I am watching on television, and the realization that mom will anyway take it aways if I am slow :P!! So that is the history.

But now in US, no mom, no brother, no mess! Yah, you can eat out or buy food coupons. But its expensive and I cannot afford it. I think I still eat out more frequently than many of my freinds...and thats entirely proportional to my craving for food good..(which is quite often :))...and a must after my experiments. However, I have been lucky in the US too, because my roomates and friends loved to cook. So for past two years I did not have to seriously worry about it. I choose to do the dish washing for them ( I love water so I enjoy it), in exchange of them feeding me. But this treaty eventually had to be broken as they graduated and had to leave.

Currently I have an american roomate who loves to cook and that makes life difficult for me! What has his cooking got to do with my life? Well, because he cooks INDIAN!!! Sometimes I would return home hungry late at night...planning for the flavour of cup noodels I should have for dinner, but as soon as I enter the house I can smell rajhma, chicken curry....basmati....

"....mmmmm.....yuuuuuuuuummmm,.."

Thanks to my roomate, who would have cooked something, leaving the flavour in the air. Usually while living with international roomates here, you have to take care that you do not leave the house smelling. I mean you can really have mean roomates who can complain about onions, or smell of spices in our food...

I too have that, but instead of smell, I have problems with the flavour of his cooking which leaves me hungry even after I have my "planned" dinner!! Sometimes I have been lucky to be right on time, while he is eating. I get to taste....his food. Here in US, you don't generally eat each others food. You have very distincts I's and Mine and NOT mines! So I usually avoid doing it, particularly knowing that it will be weeks till I will be able to offer what I cook. Besides it could be a torture on him!

So in nutshell, cooking sucks but not eating :) ! And I hate the Milllion Dollar Question, that rings my mind every evening...I don't know how the other students (the ones who don't enjoy cooking) manage! But for me its TOUGHER than doing my PhD. Atleast I will get done with it, in next couple of years...unlike the million $$$ question "hmmm....Aaaj Kya Khaun?", haunting my mind forever!

Pleasssssss feel free to let me know if anybody found an escape from above :)