A small observation.

Much of the world’s misery could be traced to India, more precisely, to the Indians’ obsession with food.

Purely as an example, we have seen the water in the kettle boil. George Stephenson saw this and went on to invent the steam engine which changed everything. An Indian saw the same thing and invented the ‘idli,’ presumably the greater invention. Till date, no one has succeeded in fully mechanising (at reasonable cost) the humble chapati, another great invention.

Indians invented the spices, saffron and fasting (fastidiously called ‘dieting’). The fame spread far and near. So much so that many intrepid souls ventured out from different shores in search of India.

One guy called Columbus went and saw some land and was thrilled thinking he had found India. Later, another guy, Cook, landed up there and, probably to justify his name, thought he could start ‘cook’ing immediately. That piece of land is modern day America. Many expeditions failed but meanwhile, wherever the English, Portuguese, Spanish and the French stopped to pick up food and water, they also colonised. This is how most of the world was colonised.

Someone gave me this theory when I was on a UN deputation in Sierra Leone. He was not an Indian. He was Portuguese. And a coloniser to boot.

Whatever be the problems between the two countries, the Indian and Pakistani officers get along well in the multilateral work environments like UN deputations. When both the contingents landed almost simultaneously in the Mozambique mission, the initial situation looked a little daunting. Until we, the Indian and Pakistani officers discovered an Indian restaurant called Taj. On our first outing there, when the bill arrived in Meticals (1 USD = 8,000 Meticals), one Pakistani officer exclaimed, “Ghar mein pata chalega to beta bolega, baap lakh lakh ka kha gaya!” [“When they get to hear about this at home, my son will complain that his father has eaten through millions!”]

On being allotted our assignments at Mozambique, an IPS batchmate and I reached our duty station, Pemba at around 4 in the afternoon after a 500 km drive. We hadn’t had lunch, were bone weary, and famished. The UN office was in a four-storey building which was earlier a hotel. The owner retained the ground floor and rented out the other floors to the UN. He used the ground floor as his residence-cum-restaurant. He was of Indian origin. We thought we would approach him for our immediate requirement of some nourishment, any nourishment. He was very helpful and polite. Only problem was the language barrier. He could speak and understand any language provided it was Portuguese and we had zero knowledge of that language. Anyway, with a lot of hand gestures and mouth gestures, we managed to convey, after a labour of about 15 minutes, that what we wanted was omelettes and bread. Finally, when he understood our frantic gesticulations which included sound effects of a hen laying an egg, etc., he said, “Ahh, um momento,” or something to that effect which we took to mean, “one moment.” Our choice of the cuisine was predicated on the premise that any restaurant would have these basics and even the worst cook in the world couldn’t really spoil an omelette. After a few minutes, we found the guy revving up his scooter and going off. We could see his travel trajectory. He went into a shop at a distance, bought the eggs, bread, butter and so on, came back, prepared the food and served. From the point of order through the comprehension of the order, procurement of the ingredients, preparation and service was in excess of an hour and a half. JIT (Just-In-Time management) was not even a glimmer in the eye of the management gurus then but this guy was already practising it.

Over time, the guy actually became our go-to guy for everything. Pemba was a place where we lived our lives cyclically, i.e., cycles of plenty and cycles of famine alternating with each other. Everything was imported – eggs, matchboxes, vegetables, rice, everything. Once in a month or two at unpredictable times, a ship used to dock and all the shops, roadsides were awash with foodstuff and essentials for a few days. Then the town used to lapse into prolonged barrenness. This UN office guy became our storekeeper and procurer for all these essential items. The booze on offer was generally whiskey and beer (called cerveja). These were of fancy brands like Chivas Regal, Johnny Walker, Heineken and so on. They were all too mild for the Indian palate and taste and the Indian officers used to keep pestering him for procuring something “stronger.” He used to make frantic trips in search of this something stronger. Increasingly stronger stuff was just not meeting the Indians’ exacting requirements. Finally, one day, he announced that he had managed to get hold of the strongest whiskey in the world and, with a flourish, produced it before our astonished eyes. On the label, there was no name of the manufacturer, bottler, or anything. There were just three letters in huge, bold type. R U M. He pronounced it as room (whiskey). That “whiskey” was really coarse, hard and rough and was an infinitely rum experience.

At Pemba, we had a most interesting boss. His name was Mattie and he was from Finland. We didn’t see him the first two days. On the third day, he arrived and after a few pleasantries, begged off saying he had a hangover because of a bit too much the previous evening and went home. Later, we found that this was his regular pattern – he would appear for an hour or two every 3/4 days, completely hung over. The officers used to talk about different sizes of drinks, small peg, large peg, extra-large peg and, finally, Mattie peg.

Two officers who were IPS batchmates and posted at another station, stayed together and started fighting from day one. Some of these fights spilled over to the workplace also. One of them was Paramjit Bajaj. When the incumbent Post Commander returned to his country after completing his term, Paramjit lobbied long and hard for becoming the Post Commander. When the other guy was made the Post Commander, he locked the Post Commander’s office room and disappeared with the key – to be traced a thousand miles away later. I was in a nearby station and was senior to them. Once when we met socially, I asked Paramjit why bother to fight; it was a short assignment; money was the same for everyone; the fight was creating an adverse opinion on the Indian contingent; and so on. He was fairly convinced but suddenly asked, “But Sir, how can I stand him – the guy doesn’t even eat non-vegetarian food?”

[Names changed to protect identities]