Important Notice: If you don't know what a Kothu Parotta is, here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kothu_Parotta
As much as I enjoy watching Masterchef Australia on Star World or countless random food shows on TLC about how different dishes across the world are actually made from scratch, I usually don't give a shit when I actually sit and order something for myself. All I care about is how fast it gets to my table and how edible it is in the end. This is what I follow usually, barring of course this one situation.
My first encounter with this entity dates back to a just more than a couple of years ago, when I was still in college, doing my thing, merely existing without giving two fucks about the future. So there we would be, standing in a circle and questioning our existence and our purpose in an engineering college, amidst smoke from a countless cigarettes vanishing into the sultry humid evening sky.
One of us would order the Kothu Parottas for all of us, and the 'Master'(as these culinary artists are fondly known as at every local street eatery) would scratch his masala-laden baniyan and nod without looking at you. And out of nowhere, he begins. It's the first sound of the steel spatula hitting the tawa that snaps you to to realize, 'Yes, it's time.'
One by one he'd add all the ingredients: the tomatoes, the chillies, the curry leaves, the cardamom, the freshly torn pieces of the parottas, and the eggs. And after each round, like a DJ at any trashy EDM gig, he would play his steady, rhythmically incremental beats when he strikes the ingredients frying on the tawa. Only here, the console is a tawa and the DJ is a man clad in a baniyan and lungi of a hygiene level best left unquestioned, and a couple of metal spatulas. And the experience isn't trashy.
Every time I'm engulfed in this experience, listening to that insanely trippy beat of the utensils clanging against the sizzle of the tawa, a thousand different questions arise as my mind totally shifts to another parallel dimension.
Who are these men? Are they human? Are they artists? Are they some secret agents? Are they messengers of God? Or are they God himself?
I can't help but ponder over the limitless symbolism behind the experience of watching a Kothu Parotta Master at work. I'd like to believe that the Master symbolizes God, and the tawa is our world as we know it. After every serving he dishes out, he wipes our world clean, preparing for the next apocalypse. And then begins his process of creation, with each one of us as its epicenter. The ingredients represent are your family, your friends, your acquaintances, your enemies, your dreams, your aspirations, your decisions, your hardships, your memories, your fears, your joys, your sorrows and every feeling you'd ever experience throughout your life.
The irregular pieces of Parotta are nothing but you, thrown in randomly. Like Voldemort splits his soul into different pieces stored at different random locations, the Parotta pieces represent you at different points of your life. It's when you meet the other aforementioned ingredients do you become a different person at different stages of your life. With every friend you gain or lose, every thought you nurture, every dream you pursue, every situation you fear and avoid, with every joy and memory you cherish, or every hardship you endure, you become a different person and your life takes a different turn. Even a person standing 5 feet away from you at the bus stop, or the Mentos you chewed on after your last cigarette, is inevitably going to affect your life in some way or the other.
After the Master is done mashing you and the other ingredients set to that resounding beat, he laps it up and serves it to you. You've had it a million times before, experienced it a million times before but you expect something different out of every situation.
All he does is take your life back, acts like he's adding some masala to it, mashes it up again and serves it back to you. On a plate. And you think you're getting something new each time, but it isn't. It's the same, you just think it's new and act accordingly.
Now it's up to you what you want to do with your life...err...your dish. You can either add the accompanying gravy, mix it and relish it over multiple bites. Or try to eat it too quickly and end up burning your tongue. Or wait for it to cool down and have it when you're ready. Or not eat it all, thinking that it'll affect you adversely.
Or, be your own Kothu Parotta Master. The choice is yours.
