Claws Attack

Fork in left hand-knife in right hand(Wish to God I had one more hand to hold a spoon too). I looked my enemy in the eye. No, that was wrong-my enemy had no eye! There it lay on my plate, looking like an amputated entity. A quick manoeuver sees the fork in my right and knife in the left. I thought that since I was left-handed, I could cut and butcher it better with my left hand. My weapons of meal destruction raced towards their hapless victim on the plate. With the fork I pinned it down so that it could not move (now that I think of it, I needn't have done that. There was no way it could move-it was dead!). The relentless knife struggled against an equally stubborn victim. This was Non-violent resisitance at it's best Post-Gandhiji. I applied all my force on the surface of my target. One moment there was no respite. The next moment my knife had cut through it's victim and had hit the plate. The object of my affection though, had hit everywhere else-including my face.

I hate crabs.

Rewind a few days earlier to the day when a colleague of mine stated that he had crab for lunch over the weekend. This person belonged to the other side of my fence. He was married. He couldn't stop raving about the olfactory and gustatory virtues of a crab revelling in thick Indian curry. To me, who was and is and looks likely to 'will be' the victim of largely non-home food, this was too much to bear. I decided that I would venture into virgin territory (Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!Don't read into those last two words!!!!I was merely using a metaphor!!!)I would have my share of crab that weekend.

As fate would have it, I chanced to go to a restaurant the very next day for lunch. I took one look at the menu and saw my goal etched clearly in black type against a white background-'Crab Masala'.For once in my largely indecisive lifetime, I had made a prompt decision. " I'll have Crab". My friends shot me eerie looks. "What??"
"..ummm nothin much buddy..it wont be very meaty.."
"that's ok. I just want to know how it tastes."

I wish I never had said those fateful words.The waiter brought me my prized dish after a loooong anticipating wait..The surface of my dish looked placid..a dark curry red..I reached into it with an eager spoon. It soon scooped up something that looked like a claw! YOW!!Ack!!Now why didnt it strike me that crabs would have claws which would have to be negotiated when being eaten? My friends saw my wary eyes and gave me a "we told you so...." look and went about their conventional dishes. I stared back at the amputation that was lying on it's back (or front? I don't really know..it's hard to make out the difference with these things)I went in for the kill with steel determination in my eyes and steel weapons in my hands..

Many highly unfruitful culinary onslaughts later, all I managed to lay my mouth on were a few morsels of what tasted very much like the sea. Wasn't much to it after all..A great portion of my prize lay battered,mutilated, but otherwise unharmed on my plate..I made do with the gravy. I thanked the good Lord above that I didn't have enough bad sense to order Crab Fry!

Paid the bill, came out, went to the nearest store and helped myself to two chocolate bars to relieve me of my hunger.

Experiments are great..they show us a world we never thought possible..but I learnt one thing from my experience that day:

Never fight with a dead crab!!