“Yellow Rice”

In all my years of being Indian, I have encountered too many colors of rice. None as delicious and unique as lemon rice.

First of all, lemon rice’s color is too unique to keep secret. Its vibrant yellow color will have the kids at your lunch table wondering what on earth is she eating?!  Too few souls are ready to venture out to taste this vibrant, foreign beauty.

It was a food I grew up with. One of my earliest memories was when our roof guy, Rick, tried a bowl. He was fixing something in our home, so my parents invited him in for tea, coffee, whatever his little heart desired... (This is typical for Indian parents (hospitality seems far more important than the love for their children.) My mom served him a steaming cup of sweet Indian coffee. I remember my father, asking in his heavy accent, “Would you like to try some Indian food.” This American had never gone beyond the realms of the five tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, spicy; In India, it’s six ( one of them too complicated to explain.) He wanted a taste of our homecooked meals, so he accepted.  I don’t know what he was expecting, perhaps the sweet, rich flavor you get from Paneer Butter Masala or the tangy, crunchiness from Aloo Tikki. I wanted my 7-year-old self to tell him, my friend, those are the flavors of North India.  This taste would be hard to forget. My mother gave him a bowl full of the vibrant rice and he dug his plastic spoon into the rice (it immediately stained yellow from the turmeric) and took a bite. I watched as his eyes slowly turned red and beads of sweat formed on his wrinkled forehead... He gasped for water, and my sister and I, both young, and acquired to the taste, couldn’t help laughing, as my confused father brought it out to him.

I guess we never noticed how spicy it was. Maybe this is why we find hot sauce and sriracha sweet, and add it to everything.

Lemon rice made the most common appearance in my lunch box. I could bet you I would find my bread-shaped container filled to the brim with that vibrant yellow, and I would probably be right. I couldn’t tell you how many times I would make heads turn just by opening my lunchbox. But as always with unique things, my classmates’ reactions weren’t always positive.  I dealt with a lot of bullying because of the food I brought for lunch, so I asked my mother to pack me the bland, tasteless sandwiches that I saw everyone else bring to lunch. After a week of opening my lunchbox to see the same old soggy PB&J sandwich, I begged my mother to bring back the masalas, the complexities, that I so enjoyed eating. I learned to live with the teasing, and some even asked to try the foods I brought to school. Today, I don’t have a problem with opening my lunchbox and the aromas that arise from it.

My dad hates fast food. This usually results in my mother making food for “snacks-on-the-go”, when we go on vacation, or long road trips. No food is as portable or filling as lemon rice. There is a different feeling when you watch the trees pass by, and you munch on the plate of lemon rice nestled in your lap, with a plastic spoon, maybe a fried potato or two in between bites.  The joyful laughs of my mother and the scolding of my father telling my baby sister to finish her food often pair well with these moments.

Things have been different now, with the virus, and everything. Being isolated has been… different. I’ve definitely spent too much time with my family. We sit down for a late lunch at 3 every day and are unveiled to what I helped my mother make for lunch. Today it was lemon rice. Let me tell you, I was surprised to see the familiar pan of yellow vibrancy.  And to pair it off, a bowl of my mom’s famous fried potatoes (nowhere near in color or taste such as the french fries you get in fast food). It was weird to eat this food while being stationary. Where were the trees? The paper plate, the plastic spoons? Nevertheless,  I closed my eyes and savored the taste my brain had been searching for all these years. It had been so long. Too long. If nostalgia had a flavor, then this would be it. The spicy potatoes with the tangy rice floated me back to my childhood. The feeling of the crunch of the peanuts in the rice was too extraordinary to put down in words. Lunch was over too soon. When will I taste the bright yellow, the tangy sour, of this aromatic rice again?

Many things have significant value in life. None as powerful as food.

- Manushree Navneethakrishnan