Boston owes me one
Young people down the ages have always looked for inspiration and I was no different. One such inspiration was Swami Vivekanand. I was fascinated by his story: How he came from an aristocratic family and then went on to become one of the most revered spiritual leaders of his time. Two timelines and addresses stood out in his biography — his 1882 meeting with Ramakrishna Paramahansa in Kolkata which answered his questions and formed his beliefs; and his 1893 visit to Boston to meet professor John Henry Wright of Harvard University, which led to his eventual famous speech at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. My mind had decided that I was fated to have similar ones in mine! Boston was now on my ‘must visit’ cities. In 2001, I went as a visiting student on a n international scholarship to the Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. Boston was just a hop, skip and jump away, so when I heard a few students were planning a trip to Boston, I wasn’t going to miss the chance to date destiny. I found myself sitting in the drawing room of an apartment shared by three girls studying at Harvard. It was incidentally also the birthday of one of the girls. Finding it a little odd to not be contributing, I thought I’d best make myself useful in the kitchen.
I met Isabella there; she stood over the stove trying to turn over a pan full of chunky potatoes. Clearly, she was struggling but didn’t want to show it. After a few awkward minutes, I asked her what she was making and she said it’s a famous Spanish dish called Tortilla Española. She was making it as a savoury birthday cake for her friend. Now, I’d worked a Spanish range for a couple of years and this was right up my line. So I took to the range and owned it for the next 40 minutes. Issy couldn’t believe that an Indian had come to Boston to show her how to make a dish from her hometown, Alicante.
The Swami gave a memorable speech in Boston, I gave a cooking lesson. Most people wouldn’t consider these experiences the same, so Boston still owes me one. Mandaar Sukhtankar is the Area Director (Food production) at The Park, Hyderabad