Pickles, Sugar and Pepper!

Many years ago while doing my Masters, I had a professor who taught me linguistics. This good man from a Brahmin family had done his studies in England and very often told us stories of life in that country where he had gone to study. “For the first few months,” he said, “I could not eat the English food! It was bland and tasteless, and I was a vegetarian. Then one day my mother sent me a bottle of pickle and packets of pepper. After that, every meal became a delight!”

Today, as I think of my professor and his love for pickles and pepper, a question comes to my mind, “Did my professor eat only pickles and pepper?”

No, he mixed the pickle and sprayed the pepper on the meals which were already there!

The pickle and the pepper when added to the lunch or dinner made it pleasurable!

What would have happened if my good professor decided he would only eat pickles and pepper and nothing else?

Sounds silly doesn’t it?

But often we are all as silly as that. We want to live in a world of fun. We want to live in a sensuous world of bodily pleasure, till we get bored of that pleasure and search for other excitement and more excitement.

Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.