by NINAD JOG
"You should have a cupcake!"
"Cupcakes are so cloyingly sweet. On the rare occasions I have them, I feel like bathing them in fiery spices."
"There's hot sauce in the kitchen cabinet. Should I get you some?"
The woman had Vinod cornered, that too at a company event of all places. Only an Asian colleague could have had the presence of mind not to be thrown off by the peculiar preference for a spicy dessert; only she could have had the gumption to assist Vinod in his endeavor. He was tempted to take up her offer.
Vinod was tempted to take up her offer, but hesitated for a moment, and ultimately demurred. There was no point in drawing attention to himself and becoming the laughing stock at a celebratory event where the company's top brass were in attendance. No matter how blissfully oblivious to other people's reactions he professed himself to be, some lines were best left uncrossed.
But his real reason was slightly different. Hot sauce may artfully mask the intolerable sweetness of a cupcake, but it cannot negate the harmful effects of added sugar and the surfeit of saturated fat. Sugar's a toxin that's best kept at arm's length, or so say the wise men.
"Are you leaving?" the colleague asked, seeing Vinod walking toward the conference room's exit.
He nodded. He didn't let on that he wasn't calling it day; that he was merely going right back to his office and continue working. He would leave it up to his colleagues to eat and drink and make merry. Having eagerly looked forward to the afternoon event -- with its vaunted Georgetown cupcakes, apple cider and champagne, it had let him down. Or had he let it down?
Vinod was no stranger to Georgetown cupcakes. Five years ago he had trekked all the way to Georgetown with a newly-minted friend, that too in the sweltering summer heat, all because the friend was craving cupcakes. Vinod would've done anything to please his Cambodian friend, for such is infatuation. Never mind that the man was a good fifteen years younger than him, and the chance of dating him was zero. As they sat on the banks of the Potomac, eating the delicacies that they had queued up for over twenty minutes to purchase, Vinod had feigned a genuine love of cupcakes. The Cambodian man had fallen for it hook, line and sinker, but it hadn't raised the chances of the two of them dating each other: those stayed at zero.
Now that Vinod was at a company event, the infatuation was history, and the memory of eating cupcakes on a river bank had dissolved into in the mists of time. With a job that he was in no danger of losing, there was no reason to please anyone by eating cupcakes.
"You eat so healthy!" the Asian colleague fired by way of a parting shot as Vinod left the conference room.
Vinod gave her a strained smile and returned to his desk.
***
Not a quarter of an hour passed before another colleague passed by his office - the one who hadn't been in the conference room when the event started, as he had been away at a meeting. He asked Vinod if he had sampled any of the cupcakes. Vinod shook his head and asked him the same question.
"No, I didn't. And I don't plan to. I just looked at them!"
Vinod was surprised, for he knew his colleague to have a sweet tooth. Perhaps he was controlling his carb intake. "I didn't have them either," Vinod told him. "I worshiped them from a distance, then rushed back to my office and had a small piece of dark chocolate - that too eighty-five percent dark!"
The colleague pointed a finger at Vinod -- a benignly accusing one, noted Vinod -- and laughed heartily; a laughter that rang unfettered in the deserted hallway.
"I won't be surprised if people think I'm a snob," Vinod told himself. "Such a snob!"
***
Leaves were hurriedly detaching themselves from trees, autumn was in the air, and even the shrubs and bushes were turning deep red with embarrassment. But to Vinod it felt like it was raining cupcakes, for just the past weekend a visitor to his home had offered him one out of the blue.
"We got you a cupcake!" he had announced cheerfully, soon after Vinod's roommate introduced the strapping Filipino man to him at his home one night. "It's in the kitchen. We had cupcakes for dessert when we ate out."
Vinod thanked him warmly and rushed into the kitchen, his mouth watering. He deftly retrieved the gift from the bottom of a large brown envelope. But imagine his disappointment upon discovering that it wasn't a chocolate cake. Maybe it was a cheesecake or a vanilla cake or God knows what other flavor. A cake that wasn't a chocolate cake wasn't fit enough to call itself a cake, be it a cupcake or be it a wedding cake.
When the guest asked him a few minutes later if he liked it, Vinod made no secret of his disappointment. "I eat nothing but chocolate cakes!" he snapped grumpily. "But thanks all the same; it's the thought that counts."
The guest was visibly taken aback. Who would have thought the slightly built Indian could be such a rank ingrate, a spoiled brat, one given to looking a gift horse in the mouth, one all-too-capable of pouring cold water on a kind deed? Too often in life does kindness go unacknowledged, let alone rewarded.
How could Vinod have salivated at the prospect of having a chocolate cupcake one weekend, only to spurn it without a second thought a few days later, when rows upon rows of cupcakes - both chocolate and non-chocolate ones - awaited him on the large table in the company conference room. Was he that fickle?
The truth wasn't hard to fathom, although Vinod was loath to admit it. Had it not been for the heavy lunch and the handful of nuts he had eaten a few minutes before the company event, he would have salivated just as much, and would have surely deigned to have at least a small piece of cake. No matter how strong willed he fancied himself to be, he did succumb to temptation every once in a while, healthy eating be damned. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is sayings like these that ultimately take the cake.
***
Gone were the days when Vinod genuinely enjoyed eating all sorts of cakes and pastries. While growing up in India, he would get to eat them rarely -- maybe no more than three times a year, that too if his parents bought them from the Monginis bakery in the neighboring suburb, or if he was invited to some kid's birthday party, which was rarer still.
He could never tell the difference between cakes and pastries then, and he couldn't tell it even now. To him they were the one and the same. It never bothered him when people laughed at him and looked down upon him for his ignorance. Some of them even took pains to put him wise, but he never remembered the explanations. A cake was a pastry was a cake. There! Piece of cake!
Despite finding himself at the receiving end of an endless stream of cake-pastry jokes, Vinod found ample occasion to look down upon a particular group of people - not the ones who made fun of him, but the ones whose strict vegetarianism kept them from eating anything containing eggs, such as cakes and pastries.
Chief among them was his father. In fact his father was the only one in their family who largely stayed away from cakes. On the rare occasions that he had a piece, Vinod would feel triumphant - triumphant that the avowed vegetarian was eating humble pie, if only a piece of it. Vinod and his mother and sister also thought of themselves as vegetarians, but like many Indian vegetarians, they weren't averse to eating eggs.
It all fit in well, for wasn't his father a self-made man, one who grew up in relative poverty in a small town in rural India, studied in a school having Marathi instead of English as its language of instruction? How could he be expected to eat a cake? And there at the polar extreme was his son - an urban kid studying in a Catholic school, with English as the medium of instruction, in what was arguably the most Westernized city in India? Of course he was going to eat his cake and have it too! Who cared if he couldn't tell a cake from a pastry? That was a trivial matter; what truly mattered was whether one could eat a cake or not.
Little could he have imagined that one day in the distant future he would follow in his father's footsteps by largely forsaking all desserts - not because they contained eggs but because they weren't healthy.
***
But temptations did beckon, especially if it was a chocolate cake. Disappointed that the cupcake that his roommate's friend got for him wasn't a chocolate cake, Vinod helped himself to an extra piece of dark chocolate from his pantry and went to bed.
The next morning there arose the question of when exactly the friend would return home, all the way to Baltimore, a good seventy-five miles away. The answer was obvious: using the same modes of transport that he had taken the previous evening: two suburban trains, one inter-city train, one bus, and a car ride from Vinod's home to the metro station, which Vinod's roommate graciously agreed to provide.
The Filipino man pored over various bus and train schedules, jittery with anxiety as he racked his brains to minimize the time he would spend waiting for buses and trains and reach home before it got dark and cold. Vinod guessed that it would take him a good three hours at the very least.
"I don't think we can have lunch together," the guest told Vinod's roommate, as Vinod hovered within hearing range in the living room. "I should get going pretty soon."
It was Vinod's turn to fling a surprise. "You don't have to worry about bus and train schedules," he announced grandly. "I'll drop you home in my car - all the way to Baltimore!"
It took a moment or two for the offer to sink in. A wide smile lit up the guest's face. He stopped cowering and stood up straight. "Thank you very much!" he cried. "Thank you!"
"Are you sure?" his roommate asked Vinod, for he didn't want to put him through the trouble of driving over an hour each way.
Vinod said he would be fine; he had given several of his friends rides to Baltimore over the years. He told the guest that they could leave at any time he wanted, including right away. The Filipino man decided to leave in the afternoon, and he and his friend went out to lunch. They invited Vinod to join them, but Vinod said he would prefer to eat at home. The two returned home in the early afternoon.
"Look what we got for you!" cried the Filipino man, giving Vinod a small brown paper bag. "A cupcake!"
Just as he had the previous night, Vinod rushed into the kitchen, his mouth watering. He deftly took the gift out, and gave a whoop of joy. For what lay in the bottom of the bag was no ordinary cupcake; it was a chocolate cupcake. Vinod thanked the guest warmly, and soon they were off.
Unfortunately, the drive to Baltimore took a good ninety minutes due to traffic jams, but it was well worth it. It was no walk in the park, nor was it a cakewalk.
Vinod and his roommate eagerly shared the parting gift after Vinod returned home. They bit into it not on the banks of the Potomac, but at the dining table of their suburban apartment, looking out the window at the magnificent fall colors. There was no reason for Vinod to feign a liking for the chocolate treat; he genuinely enjoyed it. After all it was a piece of cake.
"You should have a cupcake!"
"Cupcakes are so cloyingly sweet. On the rare occasions I have them, I feel like bathing them in fiery spices."
"There's hot sauce in the kitchen cabinet. Should I get you some?"
The woman had Vinod cornered, that too at a company event of all places. Only an Asian colleague could have had the presence of mind not to be thrown off by the peculiar preference for a spicy dessert; only she could have had the gumption to assist Vinod in his endeavor. He was tempted to take up her offer.
Vinod was tempted to take up her offer, but hesitated for a moment, and ultimately demurred. There was no point in drawing attention to himself and becoming the laughing stock at a celebratory event where the company's top brass were in attendance. No matter how blissfully oblivious to other people's reactions he professed himself to be, some lines were best left uncrossed.
But his real reason was slightly different. Hot sauce may artfully mask the intolerable sweetness of a cupcake, but it cannot negate the harmful effects of added sugar and the surfeit of saturated fat. Sugar's a toxin that's best kept at arm's length, or so say the wise men.
"Are you leaving?" the colleague asked, seeing Vinod walking toward the conference room's exit.
He nodded. He didn't let on that he wasn't calling it day; that he was merely going right back to his office and continue working. He would leave it up to his colleagues to eat and drink and make merry. Having eagerly looked forward to the afternoon event -- with its vaunted Georgetown cupcakes, apple cider and champagne, it had let him down. Or had he let it down?
Vinod was no stranger to Georgetown cupcakes. Five years ago he had trekked all the way to Georgetown with a newly-minted friend, that too in the sweltering summer heat, all because the friend was craving cupcakes. Vinod would've done anything to please his Cambodian friend, for such is infatuation. Never mind that the man was a good fifteen years younger than him, and the chance of dating him was zero. As they sat on the banks of the Potomac, eating the delicacies that they had queued up for over twenty minutes to purchase, Vinod had feigned a genuine love of cupcakes. The Cambodian man had fallen for it hook, line and sinker, but it hadn't raised the chances of the two of them dating each other: those stayed at zero.
Now that Vinod was at a company event, the infatuation was history, and the memory of eating cupcakes on a river bank had dissolved into in the mists of time. With a job that he was in no danger of losing, there was no reason to please anyone by eating cupcakes.
"You eat so healthy!" the Asian colleague fired by way of a parting shot as Vinod left the conference room.
Vinod gave her a strained smile and returned to his desk.
***
Not a quarter of an hour passed before another colleague passed by his office - the one who hadn't been in the conference room when the event started, as he had been away at a meeting. He asked Vinod if he had sampled any of the cupcakes. Vinod shook his head and asked him the same question.
"No, I didn't. And I don't plan to. I just looked at them!"
Vinod was surprised, for he knew his colleague to have a sweet tooth. Perhaps he was controlling his carb intake. "I didn't have them either," Vinod told him. "I worshiped them from a distance, then rushed back to my office and had a small piece of dark chocolate - that too eighty-five percent dark!"
The colleague pointed a finger at Vinod -- a benignly accusing one, noted Vinod -- and laughed heartily; a laughter that rang unfettered in the deserted hallway.
"I won't be surprised if people think I'm a snob," Vinod told himself. "Such a snob!"
***
Leaves were hurriedly detaching themselves from trees, autumn was in the air, and even the shrubs and bushes were turning deep red with embarrassment. But to Vinod it felt like it was raining cupcakes, for just the past weekend a visitor to his home had offered him one out of the blue.
"We got you a cupcake!" he had announced cheerfully, soon after Vinod's roommate introduced the strapping Filipino man to him at his home one night. "It's in the kitchen. We had cupcakes for dessert when we ate out."
Vinod thanked him warmly and rushed into the kitchen, his mouth watering. He deftly retrieved the gift from the bottom of a large brown envelope. But imagine his disappointment upon discovering that it wasn't a chocolate cake. Maybe it was a cheesecake or a vanilla cake or God knows what other flavor. A cake that wasn't a chocolate cake wasn't fit enough to call itself a cake, be it a cupcake or be it a wedding cake.
When the guest asked him a few minutes later if he liked it, Vinod made no secret of his disappointment. "I eat nothing but chocolate cakes!" he snapped grumpily. "But thanks all the same; it's the thought that counts."
The guest was visibly taken aback. Who would have thought the slightly built Indian could be such a rank ingrate, a spoiled brat, one given to looking a gift horse in the mouth, one all-too-capable of pouring cold water on a kind deed? Too often in life does kindness go unacknowledged, let alone rewarded.
How could Vinod have salivated at the prospect of having a chocolate cupcake one weekend, only to spurn it without a second thought a few days later, when rows upon rows of cupcakes - both chocolate and non-chocolate ones - awaited him on the large table in the company conference room. Was he that fickle?
The truth wasn't hard to fathom, although Vinod was loath to admit it. Had it not been for the heavy lunch and the handful of nuts he had eaten a few minutes before the company event, he would have salivated just as much, and would have surely deigned to have at least a small piece of cake. No matter how strong willed he fancied himself to be, he did succumb to temptation every once in a while, healthy eating be damned. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is sayings like these that ultimately take the cake.
***
Gone were the days when Vinod genuinely enjoyed eating all sorts of cakes and pastries. While growing up in India, he would get to eat them rarely -- maybe no more than three times a year, that too if his parents bought them from the Monginis bakery in the neighboring suburb, or if he was invited to some kid's birthday party, which was rarer still.
He could never tell the difference between cakes and pastries then, and he couldn't tell it even now. To him they were the one and the same. It never bothered him when people laughed at him and looked down upon him for his ignorance. Some of them even took pains to put him wise, but he never remembered the explanations. A cake was a pastry was a cake. There! Piece of cake!
Despite finding himself at the receiving end of an endless stream of cake-pastry jokes, Vinod found ample occasion to look down upon a particular group of people - not the ones who made fun of him, but the ones whose strict vegetarianism kept them from eating anything containing eggs, such as cakes and pastries.
Chief among them was his father. In fact his father was the only one in their family who largely stayed away from cakes. On the rare occasions that he had a piece, Vinod would feel triumphant - triumphant that the avowed vegetarian was eating humble pie, if only a piece of it. Vinod and his mother and sister also thought of themselves as vegetarians, but like many Indian vegetarians, they weren't averse to eating eggs.
It all fit in well, for wasn't his father a self-made man, one who grew up in relative poverty in a small town in rural India, studied in a school having Marathi instead of English as its language of instruction? How could he be expected to eat a cake? And there at the polar extreme was his son - an urban kid studying in a Catholic school, with English as the medium of instruction, in what was arguably the most Westernized city in India? Of course he was going to eat his cake and have it too! Who cared if he couldn't tell a cake from a pastry? That was a trivial matter; what truly mattered was whether one could eat a cake or not.
Little could he have imagined that one day in the distant future he would follow in his father's footsteps by largely forsaking all desserts - not because they contained eggs but because they weren't healthy.
***
But temptations did beckon, especially if it was a chocolate cake. Disappointed that the cupcake that his roommate's friend got for him wasn't a chocolate cake, Vinod helped himself to an extra piece of dark chocolate from his pantry and went to bed.
The next morning there arose the question of when exactly the friend would return home, all the way to Baltimore, a good seventy-five miles away. The answer was obvious: using the same modes of transport that he had taken the previous evening: two suburban trains, one inter-city train, one bus, and a car ride from Vinod's home to the metro station, which Vinod's roommate graciously agreed to provide.
The Filipino man pored over various bus and train schedules, jittery with anxiety as he racked his brains to minimize the time he would spend waiting for buses and trains and reach home before it got dark and cold. Vinod guessed that it would take him a good three hours at the very least.
"I don't think we can have lunch together," the guest told Vinod's roommate, as Vinod hovered within hearing range in the living room. "I should get going pretty soon."
It was Vinod's turn to fling a surprise. "You don't have to worry about bus and train schedules," he announced grandly. "I'll drop you home in my car - all the way to Baltimore!"
It took a moment or two for the offer to sink in. A wide smile lit up the guest's face. He stopped cowering and stood up straight. "Thank you very much!" he cried. "Thank you!"
"Are you sure?" his roommate asked Vinod, for he didn't want to put him through the trouble of driving over an hour each way.
Vinod said he would be fine; he had given several of his friends rides to Baltimore over the years. He told the guest that they could leave at any time he wanted, including right away. The Filipino man decided to leave in the afternoon, and he and his friend went out to lunch. They invited Vinod to join them, but Vinod said he would prefer to eat at home. The two returned home in the early afternoon.
"Look what we got for you!" cried the Filipino man, giving Vinod a small brown paper bag. "A cupcake!"
Just as he had the previous night, Vinod rushed into the kitchen, his mouth watering. He deftly took the gift out, and gave a whoop of joy. For what lay in the bottom of the bag was no ordinary cupcake; it was a chocolate cupcake. Vinod thanked the guest warmly, and soon they were off.
Unfortunately, the drive to Baltimore took a good ninety minutes due to traffic jams, but it was well worth it. It was no walk in the park, nor was it a cakewalk.
Vinod and his roommate eagerly shared the parting gift after Vinod returned home. They bit into it not on the banks of the Potomac, but at the dining table of their suburban apartment, looking out the window at the magnificent fall colors. There was no reason for Vinod to feign a liking for the chocolate treat; he genuinely enjoyed it. After all it was a piece of cake.
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