roganjosh mein udd gaye hosh!

1979 november in srinagar, I was 17, on a vacation with family, to this exotic destination known as the Switzerland of India. Kashmir is truly a paradise, nature has been more than kind to this magnificent land, weather is absolutely wonderful, and food is out of this world. If you haven’t tasted kabargah(hope the spelling is right), meat chops cooked in milk, with saffron and other spices…. Then you haven’t lived at all!

we were at a decent eating place, close to the famous char chinaar. Me and my cousin had ordered a plate of roganjosh. Our hotel manager had informed that this place served the most authentic roganjosh in shrinagar. As we were busy sniffing the different aromas that seemed to travel around in that spacious restaurant, a family of four came and sat at a table diagonally opposite us. Needless to say my attention was drawn to the young girl, who was the part of this family.

The long and silkiest hair I have ever come across, or had ever come across till that time, she must be of my age I guess, I have never been able to guess the correct age of a woman. The more attractive the woman, the more off the mark I am, as far as guessing her age is concerned. Anyways, this girl was facing me, and next to the hair, another thing I noticed at once was the freckles on her face. I have been hugely attracted to females with a freckled face, it has been like this always, I don’t know why or since when. But the heart starts to beat faster, and in a blissful rhythm, whenever I see a girl, with that tiny area just above her cheeks, full of freckles!! God bless all the freckled females on this earth!

She looked at me and must have seen my popping eyes, or even felt the dhak dhak I was having, and started to move her fingers naughtily, a bit lazily, thru her hair. I cud recognize it was a signal, but being colorblind, cudnt make out if it was red, green or plain wait waala orange!!! Dusky skin, large eyes, large poetic n dreamy eyes, thin yet wide lips, she was 5 plus feet tall, and broad shoulders. An amazing package, a very stunning package. A package that had started to send off signals to me within minutes of taking her seat, and not bothering about her parents or her younger brother.

So much so, that I cudnt get my bearings right, and was completely floored. Meanwhile our rogan josh arrived, and my cousin insisted I pay more attention to it, or else he would leave me starving!! Reluctantly, I started to dig into the roganjosh, it was delectable, to say the least! As I glanced at her again, I observed she was staring at me…..wowww, a freckled beauty staring at me????? And then I saw her giving me a faint smile……I must have died a dozen times in those few seconds.

And as I extended my hand to pick up the glass of water, most of my attention still focused on her, I accidentally pushed the glass, which tilted in my plate. Oops!! My cousin let out a cry, I gasped, the rogan josh had turned watery, and the girl could barely contain her laughter, she saw the whole thing! The water had trickled on my trousers too, a waiter was there to clean up, my cousin was upset at me for being clumsy, half the roganjosh was gone, and I was left dumbfounded, counting freckles in the end!