Skip to main content

Divine Potato

 


Potato enlightened me once. I had, on the previous day, attended a lecture on meditation in which the speaker suggested to his audience to use a candle as an aid to concentration. “Keep your eyes on the candle flame,” he said. “Let the flame flicker. Your gaze shouldn’t flicker. Keep looking at the flame. Keep looking. Focus. Now there is nothing else in front of you but the flame. Just the flame. You don’t exist now. Not even your mind. You vanish. Your mind vanishes. Into nothingness. That state of egolessness is the ideal goal of meditation.”

I was sceptical because I had already spent hours earlier trying to achieve that state of egolessness. The best I achieved was a deep sleep. Even now at the age of 61, I find myself burdened with an ego that could not be incinerated by any furnace, let alone a candle flame. I can only envy those who claim to have extinguished their egos. Back then, after that lecture on meditation, while cooking my dinner in the tiny kitchen of a rented house in Shillong, with a peg or two of whisky tickling my neurones, I said to myself: “Why a candle flame? Even a potato can help one to focus, can’t it?”

Potato was (and still is) one of my favourite food items. It is so versatile. You can add it to almost anything. Potato and carrots. Potato and peas. Potato and French beans. I would add potato to beef too. [By the way, I quit beef the day I left Shillong where it was a staple food, not in order to be in sync with the emerging nationalist fad but because I lived in Delhi where the stuff was not available first of all and when I did get it during my occasional trips to Kerala I realised that the delicate vegetarian diets in Delhi had made my teeth grow too feeble for beef. I’d prefer muttar-paneer with a tweak of potato chunks at any time to beef.]

So there in the wooden cottage in Shillong which resembled a hermitage, I became a mystic with a shapely potato perched on my study table like a holy figurine. I focused my gaze on the potato. I kept staring at it for minutes and minutes yearning for me, my ego, to melt away. The potato filled my mind. It grew in stature into a kind of demigod. Eventually it enlightened me by teaching me that my attempt to escape from my ego was nothing more than wishful thinking.

The potato went back to the kitchen and I went back to the usual routine.

The potato rose in eminence in my mind after that. I became fonder of it. Not a meal passed without the presence of potato in one form or another. Even today, years after those youthful days of experiments and adventures, the potato occupies a venerable place in my cuisine though Maggie is not very pleased with it.

However, my patriotic sentiments are hurt by the information that potato is not Indian by origin. Wikipedia tells me that India was introduced to potato by the Portuguese who called it ‘Batata’. For that matter, a lot of food items that are staple diets today are not Indian by origin. When will they get arrested for illegal residence in the country? Maybe, I should rewrite the history of the potato so that my patriotism remains intact.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 373: Potato and you. Write an essay. As many words as you please. The genre you choose. Potato must be the hero. #Potato

Comments

  1. The Moon's BOYFRIEND May 7, 2021 at 11:20 AM

    The indirect sentences sounds too direct in my head and yes i too have tried the flame thingy a couple of times, but this tells me that you don't need a flame all you need is to concentrate... i see that you couldn't lemme try it with an onion this time lol, not cause i hate potatoes, they trouble my stomach.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 7, 2021 at 11:42 AM

      You can choose onions too. Anything can enlighten one, I guess.

      Delete
  2. Rajeev MoothedathMay 7, 2021 at 1:44 PM

    Enjoyed reading this one, especially the last line yorker!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 7, 2021 at 2:00 PM

      All my attempts at humor end up in satire if not sarcasm.

      Delete
  3. HaddockMay 8, 2021 at 7:42 AM

    Potato was (and is) is my favourite. Like you said it can be added in any curry. Whenever I hear or see potato, I am reminded of the scenes where it was a scarce item in Russia that it had to be guarded with machine guns by the army.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 8, 2021 at 10:40 AM

      Potato is a staple food in many countries. Kerala, my native state, is the only place probably where it is treated with contempt. Keralites believe that potato causes gas problem in the stomach!

      Delete
  4. Durga Prasad DashMay 8, 2021 at 8:36 AM

    Chuckled through your humorous take on potato. I am reminded of a classmate and also a boarder mate of School and College days who used to selectively eat only potato out of the vegetable dishes and wear glasses with big round lenses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 8, 2021 at 10:42 AM

      So I have a mate there. :)
      My love for potato is rather serious, you know. It's so soft that it melts away between the palates.

      Delete
  5. ViyomaMay 14, 2021 at 2:27 PM

    Portugese called it Batata’- interesting. In Marathi it is called Batata. Infact staying in Mumbai for a long time - I m more familar to Kandha -Batata ( Onion-Potato) than Pyaaz- Aaloo.

    Thanks for the prompt on Indispire. It got me back to writing mode.

    ReplyDelete
  6. SaimaMay 29, 2021 at 10:15 PM

    Amazing to read this piece.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...
7 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...
6 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more