Today I put some leftover fish curry on the stove to reheat and promptly forgot about it. This hasn’t happened to me at all in recent years, mostly because I make sure I do not wander off to other parts of the house when something is cooking on the stovetop.

You see, I have this terrible habit of forgetting all about what’s on the stove and starting on some other new pending work that catches my attention. To put an end to the burnt offerings that I seemed to regularly dedicate to the Stove God as a result, I made a decision long back, to stay put in the kitchen until all work is done, and only then move on to the next task in a different part of the house.

The clothes to be put on the line could wait. The shelves to be dusted could also wait. So could the watercolour painting waiting to be completed. And till today, this strategy has worked perfectly. I really cannot say what went wrong today and what exactly made me leave the kitchen. But I did and was soon immersed in some other work. The inevitable happened. Burnt to a char fish curry.

What was really funny about it was my reaction when my nose picked up the smell of something burning from where I was in the bedroom sorting clothes. I peered out of the window searching the surroundings for the source. Who the heck was burning stuff, I thought indignantly. I am going to give them a piece of my mind. The next-door neighbour’s yard was empty of fire. So was the empty plot on the other side. Mysterious.

Meanwhile my throat was terribly irritated and I coughed a few times while I stepped on to the balcony for putting the washed clothes on the line. Just then mother popped her head into my room and declared that there was smoke in the kitchen. The irritation to her throat had brought her out of her room to investigate.

What? Smoke? What smoke? Why smoke? No way!

Were you heating something?

OMG! THE LEFTOVER FISH CURRY!!!!!

I ran to the kitchen. But everything was over by then. Four miserable sardines lay shrunken, glued to the blackened bottom of the clay pot. Of the gravy there was absolutely no sign. Oh well. I’d have to make do with veggie stew today, I thought sadly. But then I remembered there was the fried fish in the refrigerator and cheered up considerably. That though was reheated in the microwave oven. I was not taking any more chances.

All’s well that ends well. Now only the cleaning of the pot remains.

©️ Shail Mohan 2023