The Hottest Day

I think today was the hottest day of my life! I’ve never felt so hot before! Not that my skin felt hot, but my taste buds also! You must be thinking what I ‘m trying to say! Ok, lemme make it clear!
SPA(R)K i.e. the full form of we 4 friends, Sreetama, Pallabi, Angana & Khushbu who is more commonly known as Rakhi among us, so, R for Rakhi. SPARK has been friends for the last 2 years. We have become a full fledged group & have some rules & regulations of our own. Among that one of the rules is that 2 of us will give the other 2 a grand birthday treat. Angana’s birthday is on 21st May & mine is on 24th July. While Khushbu’s & Pallabi’s birthdays fall on 18th August & 17th October respectively. So me & Angu give Pallu & Khushbu treat & vice versa. Today was the D day for me & Angu. For the last 2 years, we give treat in Hatari restaurant in Triangular Park. We love that place! Thai Fish is our favourite dish over there & we love to have it with Shahi Pouao. Thanks to Pallu who had introduced us to these 2 delicacies & specialties of Hatari. Whenever we go there, Thai fish is a must! Thai fish is a preparation made from fish. Though I dunno the recipe, but when it is served, it looks like this: Small pieces of fish, dry, golden brown in colour, crispy & garnished with spring onions. It is very spicy & has a little tangy flavour. Sometimes it gets little hot due to the higher proportion of spices. That’s why we team it up with Shahi Pulao which is rather sweet owing to the presence of pine apple, raisins, carrots, peas, paneer etc. Thus, these sweet & spicy dishes provide us awesome tang to our mouth! It went just fine last year where we had also ordered a chicken dish.
This year, we decided to have just Shahi Pulao & Thai fish & nothing else. When we reached there, it was almost 3 & needless to say, we were more than hungry!!! Due to the excitement we didn’t even have our break fasts properly & went to college, attended 3 classes & rushed to Hatari! We ordered Chicken Lollypop as starters! It tasted awesome! It was served with onion pickle which I had never tasted before & needless to say, we had a gala time having them! It was very irrational on their part to serve 6 lollypops & we were 4! :P We had 1 full & ½ lollypops!!! Never mind! Dosti me aisa chalta hai!!! After that, we waited for a couple of minutes & our wait was at last finished! Aaahhhhhh!!! We were served with our much awaited & cherished dishes of Shahi Pulao & Thai Fish! Tada! Sang our hearts!!! We almost broke on them! Since we had ordered 2 plates each, we had enough fish to have for ourselves! While I helped myself by taking some pieces of fish, Angu said to me, “Eto chhoto piece nichhish keno, boro boro ne!” I replied, “Are nebo, tui age bhalo kore ne to! Prochur achhe, pore roshiye roshiye khabo!” But then also we didn’t know what was in store for us!!!
We sang Bingo & took a spoon full of pulao along with a piece of fish. Ummmmmm!!! Heaven, thought me! Had another piece of fish & Ahhh it’s so hot!!! Not only me, everyone felt that. We sipped water & splurged again. Nah, it wasn’t any better, a whole glass of water was finished in a millisecond! Among us, Khushbu & Angana just can’t tolerate the hot flavour. Poor they but I & Pallu weren’t in a better position! The pulao was still quite warm & we could feel our tongues burning! Khushbu complained of giddiness due to the over spicy taste. I could feel some fluid rolling down from my eyes to my cheeks! Uhhh! Tears came out from not only mine but every ones’ eyes. We gulped gallons of water but that helped little, rather it was adding our woes! Dunno what the waiters were doing, every time we had to shout & cry out for water. Khushbu now complained of a burning sensation but we all felt that on our lips, tongues, throat & it gradually moved down! But despite of the terrible condition, we were giggling & laughing! We were making funny remarks & actions & laughing to ourselves only!
I could see few heads turning at us to see what’s making the 4 young ladies laugh out loud! But we always give a damn to people! We kept on….
Angana had all the sweet fruits before & now had only Thai fish & rice left to have. She looked petrified! Pallabi acted in a rather normal way. She finished her share of Pulao & took some more & finished that too. Khushbu, remarked so many things but had her pulao & left only with fish. She also looked terrified as if we were served bhat, daal & neem pata, (comparison courtesy Angana). My condition was rather funny! I picked up a spoon full, looked at it for sometime, thinking of to have it or not & at last I prayed Joy Ma Jhaleshwari & had it! It tasted as terrible as before but we couldn’t afford to waste it. Pallabi had a brilliant idea of having them with tomato sauce. It sounded weired before but it really worked! The severe hot taste mellowed down. We considered ourselves as if given a task of MTV Roadies! We cheered up each other & tried to have it. Though we became a little stable but not normal! Pallabi suddenly became chivalrous & said "Ei dekh, ebhabe khete hoy!" & put a big piece into her mouth & then u should’ve seen her face! She was on the verge of crying & she was laughing at the same time. Man, what a day it was! Angana & Khushbu took a vow not to have that demon in disguise again! They hated it like anything! But there was no such thing with me & Pallu. Though we tried hard but couldn’t have it all. Few pieces were still left but nothing doing! We just paid the bill & came out to find ourselves drenched in sweat. A hot & humid day outside & equally hot feeling inside! After that we had Feast & felt a little comfortable. Whew! I’ll never forget this day! But no matter, we enjoyed the day like anything! Bingo!!!