Love Languages

Nutrichoice is my dad’s teatime snack of choice. Anyone who has ever visited him in his office during his service can attest to this. He’ll serve you red tea and Nutrichoice, even if he shouts at you a little bit. Or (full disclosure) a lot. Nutrichoice should consider him as an ad actor. They wouldn’t need to pay him cash; just a regular and constant supply of their biscuits. Which he shall consume with delight and force feed to anyone who visits him.

And I do mean force feed quite literally.

When we were growing up, we were not allowed to fast. Even for prayer. We would have been problematic Muslims, for sure, had we been of the faith. As it was, even for Christians, not even for Lent, not even for anything else. No fasting.

Because my parents’ love language is food.

A lot of people don’t eat when they’re sick. It’s just how sickness works sometimes. But when you show your love for people through the act of feeding them, this becomes frustrating at a whole other level. When you are sick in my household and your appetite is depleted, my parents will fuss over you in ever more increasingly desperate attempts to feed you the more you resist.

It’s also what we learned, although we are nowhere near as bad as they are. In my family, you just buy food to show people you cared. That’s where all my pocket money went when I was still getting pocket money from them. They’d ask me constantly if I were eating well. I always said I was. And I really was. All my pocket money when I was in Delhi went in chicken momos, auto fares and paperback novels.

It is April 10 in Champhai today. My parents had visited me and been with me from March 29 through April 8. In all that time, my house was overflowing with so many foods no three people could reasonably consume. As they were leaving, my mother went with me through the food she’d left behind for me – some food I always consider very adult choices: a pot full of bawngsa ruhkawl chhum, some thingthupui and aidu, hmarcha and a few other food that are staples – cabbages, brinjals, tomatoes, garlic, onions, tons of eggs, bekang um, sangha te, bananas, apples, passion fruits, etc. And dad had peeled off a half kilo of ginger and left it in the fridge. I mean – wut? Oh, and two litres of milk that I specifically told them I don’t consume because I drink my coffee black. All these after I told them not to leave smoked beef and rice behind because I’d eat roti and eggs. I’m still eating through the food they left. I honestly don’t know if I can finish them all. I have given up on a lot of the bananas and they’re sitting in a jar outside, fermenting. I’ll drink them later.

Once they left, I found ten packets of Nutrichoice biscuits in my tuck box.

I understand and I love them for it. But I do know that if I ever give them grandchildren, those kids are going to be fat.