ahhh being indain

Well the thing about me being as absent mined as I am is that sometimes it escapes my notice entirely that I don’t have anything to put on my sandwiches for lunch sometimes. It used to be very upsetting but NO MORE.

 

You see the office where I work is stuck all the way of the back of 205 Northway and it’s behind GES house. Now to access the building you have to go down the road and into that entrance and then walk all the way down right to the end and that is where my office is. Nestled away safe from all prying eyes and everything else.

Well on Umhlanga Rocks Drive is a little Indian restaurant called Orientals. I went there for the first time on Monday when we forgot to buy bread. I stood at the counter and stared pensively up at the menu. What could I eat that would not make me burn?

In all my wisdom and yearning for the carefree days of taking a bus and remembering Kara nichas’s I opted to go with a ¼ boneless mutton bunny.

Now for all of you who have no idea. A bunny is simply the bottom part of a loaf of bread (1/4 means it ¼ of the loaf) with the insides pulled out and curry poured in and the insides stuffed onto.

 

Now let me assure you …

 

IT WAS GOOD.

The smell of it all took me back to childhood. I still remember having my first bunny. My dad took us to some shoddy place somewhere and bought bunnies. It came with a little carrot salad and some pickle. I had no idea what it was. I don’t remember if I liked it but I remember the salad. Years later I remember sitting with my cousins at the beach with not a lot of money. Luckily though, we had enough to get 2 beans bunnies.

To be entirely honest there’s not really anything as satisfying as the feeling of curried potatoes when the melt in your mouth or the site of that little bit of bread with the curry bits soaking through. The smell of it alone can take you back to places that buried deep within the recess of your mind.

 

And the truth behind everything is that no matter how you go no matter how much you change. Be it the way you look, the way you smell, your name even. You are more than just what you are now. Behind you there’s a history behind you of a thousand people that eat with their hand.

 

In short lately I’ve been feeling as though people don’t see me as Indian and I want to say I may not be Hindi and I may not fast and I may not say ‘and all’ I don’t live in Phoenix or Chatsworth’s. I’ve been accused of speaking like a white person and I may not always eat Indian food or even know what half of them are. But at the end of it all. I’m Indian. And you know what. I’m thankful that I am.