Thai Curry

The break – well its not been so much because I’ve got bored of this blog but rather because even sleep has been at a premium these days. Stanford is currently holding me in the palm of a giant hand, fingers gently – but inexorably -squeezing. The march of a hundred deadlines, and one qualifying examination, heralds the sort of impending doom that makes you wonder exactly why you’re bothering.

And yet somehow, no matter how objectively gray your life might be any point in time, theres always something tiny that brightens things up far more than it has any right to. So a couple of days ago, sitting in a dreary office at nine thirty pm while a party goes on back home and undergrads (and luckier grad students) pack their bags for Cancun or Hawaii or Vegas…sitting staring at a flickering screen running a LaTeX editor, starving because you’ve missed lunch…into those depths of despair comes a guardian angel. A Vietnamese man selling Thai food out of a truck on a campus where all else is closed, serving up hot green curry for 4 dollars, adding a pair of chapatis on the house. And you take his food gratefully, return to that miserable office and for one brief hour afterwards you feel warm and happy and forget that eating Thai food out of a box in a deserted building should be no ones definition of heaven.

This is not the sort of memory that I’m going to look back on in a years time with any fondness, but thank goodness that we have this capacity to find pleasure in virtually nothing. Frankly its all that keeps you from just walking away sometimes.

Groceries

Saturdays in suburban Palo Alto are an occasion to indulge in that most pleasurable of American experiences, going to pick up groceries. The one thing I missed about Stanford while in India (apart from the outdoors), were the glorious, sweeping expanses of Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Milk Pail. Back in Delhi, you don’t miss the roads, the fancy cars, the people, the copious hot water, the cheap electronics (well maybe the cheap electronics a bit). But you do miss the food.

It’s a sort of decadent, overflowing waterfall of options…a thousand different strange and wonderful snacks vying for your attention, food at every stage of the cooking process, from organic raw to microwave and eat. Long aisles lined with elegant wine bottles, and the frosted pastel colours of Arbor Mist. Sauces of every possible type with literary descriptions to match, weird and wonderful cheeses, vegetables freshly sprayed with ice cold water and scores of cereal boxes (all with an agenda, from stopping breast cancer to helping high school students play sport). Pick your cause, eat your cereal. And then there are the waffles, strudels, pancakes – the breakfast triumvirate thats helped me through many a night staying up till 4. We aren’t exactly starving in India, and certainly I’m struggling to find something to replace the wonder that is aloo parantha with coffee, or the ridiculous excesses that are vodka golgappas, but the closest I come to decadent luxury in the United States is when I gaze happily at all the food, wondering what to buy this week.

Of course its more than just the things you buy. Its also people watching, culture watching. Whats the latest white american fad of the month? Care for organic? Free range? All natural? Local produce? Low fat? High protein? Holistic? Vitamin boosted? Would you like your food tasty, seductive, tempting? Or do you want the kind that will take care of you and your waistline, the kind that grew up with the right morals, never hurt animals, took care of the environment and brought joy to farmers living not more than ten miles away from you. Why not give that luscious, blueberry pie a try? Look how it speaks of untold pleasures and whispers promises of not doing more than five calories worth of damage.

Then there’s the checkout counter. A chance to take a long hard look at the insane underbelly of US popular culture. People Magazine, US Weekly and OK!, bringing astonishing revelations to you every week. I’ve never actually seen anyone buy one of these, but its vastly entertaining just looking at the covers stacked beside you as you wait in line. Did you know Angelina Jolie has a mystery illness? Incredible weight loss apparently. But that’s just the People Magazine opinion. US Weekly seems to think she’s pregnant. Is OK! right in claiming she’s getting secretly married? Or is Brangelina finished as People seems to believe? Did Lindsay Lohan pass out while driving? Or was she holidaying in Peru with an unknown Italian rockstar. The quantum nature of celebrity lifestyles is one of the last remaining mysteries of our times.

You shake your head clear and prepare to leave. The last thing you’ll see (particularly if you happen to be in Walmart) is the not so wonderful part of the American dream. A fifty year old, tired woman working at 11 at night, creased crumbled clothes, asking if you’d like paper or plastic. Or an even older homeless man just outside, barely able to stand and leaving you wondering why you’d need to do this living in the world’s richest country? Step out of the elegant environs of Whole Foods and hit rock bottom at Walmart and you begin to understand why the latter is hated so much. In rich, suburban California they like to keep their poverty at arms length and Walmart just doesnt cooperate sometimes.

There’s also the Indian store, but thats a whole different post in itself. Perhaps next time.