Day 43 : The Biryani Party

I love chicken. Serve it to me fried, roasted, stripped, minced, baked, spiced, in gravy, in rice, in/on bread, in any way. And you will be my friend for life.

Today was a biryani party at work. Which really comes down a dozen guys joining a few tables together and gorging down as much rice and chicken that would feed a family in Africa for a week. Yes, we of IT be loco.

I am not actually writing this to describe what actually biryani is or give review of the restaurant that prepared it or tell you about the talk around the table today. This is actually a different sort of post.

During feasting down a bird, have you ever had your mind wander off to think about the life (that was) of the animal you are eating?

That really sounded insane, but I didn't know how else to construct that sentence.

During in the aforementioned party I was lavishly helping myself to generous servings of biryani rice and deliciously cooked chicken and sour salad, all of it washed down with cool cola. Sometime into it, while I was eating this especially sumptuous chicken leg, this voice comes up out of nowhere inside of my head and says, "This chicken tastes pompous."

Umm, what? Chicken are not supposed to taste pompous, is it? I mean, pompous is definitely a human trait as good as any. When did poultry presume to hold such an emotion? But seeing all that food in front of me, I just put a pin on that thought and  continued with my experiment on how much a human stomach can be filled without bursting open.

Now an couple of hours later, after five kilo of biryani and at least an equal number of chickens consumed between all of us. Here I am in my break and that queer thought comes to mind again. What if the chicken and the fishes and the lambs were to actually have a side narration going on while we are all consuming their body parts? ‘Suppose then our lives would be like them TV shows and teen movies; that have this side commentary going on and at the end of each episode they spurt out some big finale thoughts on everything that had happened in that session. Like in Scrubs, or Desperate Housewives. What, there was a time when I actually thought Eva Longoria was hot.

Also, I had this other friend when I was in Chennai; a life-long veggie. Each time we were having anything that used to have limbs before coming to our plates, she would soon leave our company and move on to sit with somebody else. Her complain was whenever she used to see us eating that stuff she'd visualize of all of that we were eating as actual parts of a living chicken. Well, I confess not a pleasant use of one's imagination. I should've just asked her to think of something/someone. Why not perhaps Eva Longoria?

Anyways. I guess it is just the meat-eaters guilt talking. Or just the big fat satisfied stomach juices playing tricks with my mind.

Apart from all that.

Today does seem like a odd but beautiful day.