Chapter 13

"What you got today??"

That’s the first thing my friends and I would ask each other as soon as we reached school. Life revolved around food even then. And around our precious tiffins. There were times when the tiffin box would change hands in the school bus itself if I had brought something that a friend liked and she had brought something I liked. Kind of like a prisoner exchange where you really don’t want to let yours go but it has to be done because you want theirs so badly.

Every mother will understand where I’m coming from. Oh, the headache of planning school lunches every day for 10 years! (Add another two years if your kids decide to remain in school and continue their ISC because it’s more ‘fun’ than college). Have they not heard of college canteens and college compounds? How is school more fun than that?? The ONE time when my Sindhi quota would have worked for admission in college, they decide to stay back in school! Sorry for your loss Jai Hind & KC College.

The amount of carbs that I gave my kids in their tiffin would make Uncle Atkins turn in his grave in horror. And this mini carb fest started when they were in kindergarten where their favourite snack would be french fries lightly dusted with pepper. They (the fries, not the kids) had to be packed when hot so that they came out a soggy mess when the dabba was opened. Mcdonalds’ nightmare was Karishma’s dream.

When my son would ask for cucumber in his tiffin, I would do a little mental dance because that meant I could sleep an extra 15 minutes that morning! Cut cucumber, put in box. Easy. I would add a little baggie of spices and a wedge of lemon that he would add to the cucumber himself (yes, very gourmet). The final product was created by mixing everything together (i.e. shaking the brains out of the box so vigorously that it would have made James Bond proud). The box was opened with much flair and out came these poor cucumber slices enrobed in a deadly red masala. Whatever works, I guess. As long as I got my extra 15 minutes of sleep.

“Mama, tomorrow I’ll take chicken blob in my dabba,” said teenage Rahul.

If the Rahul of today was in school he would say, “Mama, I will take the spiced chicken piccata in my lunch box.”

So this started when one of my son’s Parsi friends Cyrus would get chicken wings to school. After a few dabba swapping episodes, Rahul begged me to ask Cyrus’ mother how to make the ‘Indian chicken”. Basically to cut out his buddy and go straight to the source. Smart. The recipe wasn’t that complicated. It was just boneless chicken breast marinated with yoghurt, lemon juice, coriander powder, chilli powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder and salt, and then pan-fried. Eventually the wings evolved into boneless chicken for easy eating, hence the name ‘chicken blob’ because, well, that’s what it looked like.

While his Parsi friends influenced his non-veg tiffins, his Gujarati friends did that for his veg tiffins. I had no intention of getting up at 5 am to make hot dhokla or khandvi for him. But when he said he loved the khakras  sprinkled with ‘some red powder’ from his friend Nishant’s tiffin, my mind immediately went to the 15 minutes extra sleep that I would get. 

The next day, khakra with red chilli powder were packed. The box came back uneaten. “Didn’t taste the same.” I might have taken offence had I spent more than 30 seconds on that ‘meal’. “Ask Heena aunty”. Theek hai. Heena was asked. Ah, it was methia na masala, not red chilli powder. No wonder. Naughty Heena, not labelling Nishant’s tiffin with ingredients.

Methia na masala was purchased. Tiffin was packed. Tiffin returned uneaten. “Not the same, ask Heena aunty.” Lucky for him, Heena aunty was my friend and I could irritate her again. “Oh, didn’t I tell you, you have to spread butter on the khakra and then sprinkle the powder on the butter so that it sticks.” No, naughty Heena, you didn’t tell me. But just for coming up with the ten-second meal, I forgave her. Tiffin was packed…again. Child returned home, grinning. Life was good. 15 minutes of sleep well-earned.

Mothers will agree with me that the main priority is to come up with tiffin ideas that are super quick to put together at 6 am, even if they are unhealthy. Ok, not all mothers will agree with that. My kids were not into taking ‘proper’ lunch to school. They would want to take food that could be consumed in less than 2 minutes so that they would use the balance 28 minutes of lunch-time making a nuisance of themselves. So dal sabzi was out of the question. That was the decade of ‘ghar ghar mein coin pizza ki kahani’. But “ask Sapna aunty which cheese she uses. Abhishek’s pizza is much better than yours.” Of course it is.

Mystery meat chicken nuggets were another favourite of theirs (/mine). As was “cracker sandwich” which was simply two Britannia cream cracker biscuits sandwiched with Amul cheese spread in the middle. Yum. PBJ sandwiches. All made it to the 15-minutes-of-extra-sleep menu.

My daughter’s favourite was sausage sandwich. Pieces of sausages fried and shoved between 2 slices of bread. Who can forget Chutney bhujia sandwiches?!

As tastes evolved, Sheekh kabab rolls came into play. No, I wasn’t getting extra enthu and sitting and mincing meat at 5 am. I discovered readymade Shiva farms ka sheekh kababs. Roti. Roll. Pack. (Chutney if I felt like it)

For those who love their gourmet sausages, smoked bratwurst, cured krakauer frankfurters and what not, let me tell you about Dak cocktail sausages. Mystery meat once again, but boy were they tasty! My kids loved them but they were my favourite too. Tiny cocktail ones, fry 16 of them together. Pack 8 for each child. 16 minutes extra sleep on Dak days.

More often than not, I was told “pack extra sausages for my friends”, or “don’t put tomato in my sandwich, this one doesn’t like tomato” or “give 10 extra cookies today” or “What did you put in my box today, someone stole it.”

After a point I stopped thinking of my kids when packing their lunch. They were anyway eating their friends’ tiffin and the friends were eating theirs. Let some other mother worry about my kids’ lunch.

When I started my cooking classes, the most asked for class was Kids Tiffin Ideas. After I told them what I used to put in my kids boxes, the ladies stopped asking me for that class :)

But this tiffin dilemma (or nuisance) will continue, whether your kids are 5 or 30. Lose your sanity and sleep, kids gotta be fed.

Random piece of trivia - did you know that Japanese school lunch is considered one of the healthiest and nutritious in the world? Soup, green tea, rice, tofu, noodles, fruits, fish, meat, and more!

Maybe in my next life I can be a Japanese mom. But for now, soggy fries it is.