Chholey without sholay

Food? Ready. Mood? Set. Show? None! To Eat, Or Not To Eat?

Ayushi Jain, AIS Gur 43, XII S

After spending many a sweaty hours working on a scrumptious meal of juicy chhole bhature – sauteing the veggies, spicing the broth, and doing whatever it took to ensure that it was just out of Sanjeev Kapoor finishing school, I finally sat down to devour the culinary spectacle. My phone precariously hanging onto dear life between just two of my left-hand fingers, miraculously didn’t faceplant onto my dinner table. And there it was, the grand stage of my gastronomic journey – the phone screen ready to serve me as intended.
Having exhausted my Selena Gomez murder mystery binge, I was left with a void that could rival the Bermuda Triangle. To fill it, I switched over to BotStar, only to find nothing. My dumdaar, masaledaar chhole bhature seemed as exciting as plain white rice when coupled with my content-less ‘continue watching’.
“Do not panic!”, the voice of the OTT monster thundered inside me as its octopus tentacles beckoned me closer to choose from PrimeTime, Setflix, Noot, and so many others my tongue found hard to pronounce. I scoured through them all, generously reading and analysing the plots and characters that matched those of my oddly specific ‘Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s aesthetic’. The exasperation mixed with the desperate yet aromatic salvation from my soon-to-be-chilled steaming hot chhole was too much to deal with.
I covered my dish with an inverted plate to shoo off the lurking mosquitoes and scurried over to see if any other genre could be exciting enough to be coupled with my beautiful creation. Reality shows? No, thanks, I have had an abundant dosage of that during school hours. Sitcoms? Can’t risk getting addicted during exam season. Game shows? I have enough trauma from Takeshi’s Castle. Argh! Okay, inhale, exhale. I headed over to Instagram to get suggestions from a quick question sticker on my Story. The aroma of the chhole seemed to be getting lost in the conditioning…or were they just turning cold? The sight of the bhaturas going gummy and brittle pained me further. But my digital dining companion had different ideas in mind. It recommended The Chronicles Of Ganji Chudail series, but I was too scared to Google what it is.
By this time, my hair was in a frenzy; my curls were untangling, and my lips were all chewed upon due to the sheer anxiety of this life-altering decision. I called it quits. I gave it a try not once but twice, yet there’s simply nothing left on this internet for me to devour. This delicious street-style icy cold chhole bhature will have to make do with absolutely no drama-serotonin whatsoever!
Oh, the nostalgia for the time I spent meticulously garnishing the meal, envisioning my perfect midnight feast, only to witness its pitiful state.  All that was going on point, gone simply due to the lack of the show that I needed to watch. It’s a catastrophe I would wish on none.
I dragged myself to make one last attempt to see what shows Times of Films was advertising, but got distracted by Buzzfeed’s ‘Which show should you watch based on your Silly Cat Gloober personality’ quiz. Wow! The results indicated me to watch the Gomez show I just finished! My soggy chhole bhature stared at me in disbelief, and I was too ashamed to make an eye contact.