The Day Bangalore Lockdown Made Me a Chef

I never realized how serious Dominoes' Pizza's "Hungry Kya" campaign is, till Monday 5 th of July,2010. This day has no real importance( its a day after USA celebrates its Independence Day). Yet, it will remain etched in my "Stomach" forever.

A few days before this memorable day, the Indian central government decided that the Indian common man's honeymoon period was over. It was payback time. And amid much hue and cry, the fuel prices were increased. The common man had hardly understood the full comport of it,when a lockdown(Bandh) was ordered by certain "Highly" intelligent individuals of the political circle. And......Bangalore came to a standstill.

I had heard a lot about such Bandhs, but the real experience happened only now. As I strolled out for a walk in the busy hours of the morning, every shop was closed. And the ones that mattered the most....the Food Joints, were shut down. Feeling terribly hungry, I measured the length and breadth of Marathalli(area where I live) to descry if possible, any signs of food. But, as fate would have it, not a single shop, even the shanty one that springs up in the nooks and recesses of residential areas, was open. With a heavy heart and empty growling stomach, I headed back home. It was time to dig deep into my supplies.

My "SUPPLIES" as you would call them, consisted of only 3 packets of biscuits, 3 slices of cheese and 1 sachet of tomato sauce. It was impossible to think, at first, how I was going to conjure up a breakfast menu and a delicious lunch out of this.I managed to take care of the breakfast, munching a few pieces from each of the 3 biscuit packets available at my disposal. Little did I realize then that my lunch was going to inspire the Chef within me.

As time for lunch approached, I realized that I could not survive on a plain diet of biscuits. Insufficient as it was, an insipid lunch would only make matters worse. I decided....it was time to innovate.

Picking up two biscuit pieces, I filled Tomato sauce in between to bring some variety into my starters for lunch. The first bite on this new preparation(Sauc-e-Monaco) was enough to indicate that I had started on the right foot. It gave me the impetus to proceed forward with my experiments. The next on menu was the Cheesi-la-Exotica. Prepared by sandwiching cheese spread or cheese slice in between a couple of biscuits and topped with ample tomato sauce, it was a real delicacy. I was now experimenting at will, using all my supplies to the best effect.

At the end of lunch, though not full satiated in terms of hunger, I was absolutely bowled over by the taste. In the EXTREME crisis, I managed to prepare my first independent and innovative line of snack recipes. The Bangalore Bandh turned me into a CHEF.