Pantastic-a-la-Sanya

When you're a grad student on a near non existent budget, eating out is the first thing that gets ditched. And if you have too much work, your cooking tends to take a hike as well. But you tried, tried your best to eat proper food. But tight time schedules wrecked havoc. That was when your friend Sanya (name changed for the sake of punnability) introduced you to pasta and you take to it immediately. All it took was to boil the water. And you didn't have to make rasam or curry. You had store bought pasta sauce.

But you soon realize you haven't been eating any vegetables. So you toss some into the pan. Then you realize that you need protein. So you add in some beans. And through weeks of cooking the same one-pot-minimal-dish-wash-requiring meal, you have *it*- the perfect tasting, well balanced, easy 12 minute meal (which, if you make in a larger pot, is many meals in 12 minutes). And since it is easy (both to make, and on your conscience), it becomes your staple food. You eat it at least six times a week. Why wouldn't you? It took you many months to perfect. It's delicious. And fairly balanced.

Then, one day, you realize that you are bored of it. You wonder if you should switch back to rice for a while. Or try your hand at a sandwich. Or maybe just "tweak it up a little, shake things around"-and you do. Then you realize you have broccoli in your pasta. But you still prefer it to standing at the stove making rotis, or cleaning the dishes after the rice, sambar and curry. It is less than perfect, but you chose to make it this way.

You still have the perfect pasta once in a while, but today, as you stare at the Brussels sprouts at the bottom of the lunch box, you wonder- were you that desperate to change this? Things that you invested yourself in to make them flawless? You wonder if this is how people deal with life in general. Search around in all earnest to find perfection- the perfect dress, the perfect house, the perfect relationship. It takes time, it takes effort. But then it's there. And well worth it.

And then, suddenly, perfection becomes too normal to mean anything anymore. You begin to wonder if what you have *is* in fact, perfection. You wonder if it could have been made better. And you try. And then you find the Brussels sprouts in your box. And you aren't sure if you are supposed to be happy or sad about it. Happy that it was only pasta, happy that you were brave enough to move out of your comfort zone and make the change. Or sad that you couldn't accept boring and mundane in things as trivial as pasta. Or afraid that you would find Brussels sprouts and broccoli in something way more important than pasta, and realize to your horror, that you put it in there.