Eat in India

We are on a trip in India, so one of the first entries should be on a theme reflecting basic life-affirming activities. Pray and Love can come later. Let's start with Eat. Food here is too spicy for almost all westerners' stomachs, and hence a temptation to be avoided. Even some berries here, a variant on cape gooseberries, which were the only exotic fruit I found in Denmark (annanaskirsebær), are making my stomach perhaps too acidic.

So far I've been on one meal a day, and avoiding liquidy foods. Of course it all tastes so good, but I don't want my coming trip to KL and China to be like one I had two years ago, where I spent most of the trip in a foetal position cradling my stomach, whilst platters full of food were dished out agonisingly before me to fellow travellers. So hopefully I also avoid the runs that seem to strike so many exactly a week after landing in Asia and eating local food. That would just be terrible timing, since my flight out of Delhi leaves in a week. "Being sick on a plane," said mum, "is worse than funeral. It's a modern Chinese saying, not least because my mum is chinese. It's the modern day version of the toothache. "Toothache is worse than major illnesses."

Avoiding food since the fast has been harder than prior to it. I developed an unhealthy fixation on food in general. I am constantly aware of my gut. Living to eat, rather than the other way around. I've always tried to provoke myself into compassion by leading food-craving thoughts to mindfulness of the hungry and destitute; hoping that maybe, one happy day, some action will eventuate. It should be easier to do that in Delhi.