I had dinner from a South Indian restaurant last week and, for a change, I ordered Chilly Parotta. If you haven’t tried it before, I might try to explain it as a very spicy preparation based on Parotta. Parotta itself is unhealthy, and if you can somehow make it more so, that is by transforming it thus! I occassionally order this dish, the frequency depending more or less on my ability to forget bad experiences in life.

Well, it’s not as bad as I may have made it out to be in the first paragraph, but every time I start eating it, I end up resolving to never ever make this mistake again. It has a good flavour and looks very attractive. It also tastes good when you start to eat. But as I eat a few pieces I get tired of it, and it takes quite a bit of struggle for me to finish it all. This has happened so many times, that now when I order Chilly Parotta, I know clearly that I am ordering it only so that I don’t have the idea of ordering it again for the next few months.

This might sound strange and ironic, but in life there are several other things as well that I similarly do only to reaffirm the agony that it will put me through. It is only by going through that pain and suffering over and again that my mind will learn to stay, steadfastly, on the path ordained by wisdom. In this one aspect, I should say I really enjoy the Chilly Parotta experience. For, for all the struggle it puts me through, it brings my attention to a point about sense pleasures that is otherwise too subtle to notice.