Surgical strikes of a different kind

You are already conjuring up images of events, across the border, with exploding armaments and collapsing fortifications. Before you stray too far into the mine-field, let me urgently apply the emergency brakes, to arrest your over speeding imagination. This narrative is a family affair and the incursions involve no air strikes with bombing runs or missiles attacks. Instead, innocuous and handy objects fly with deadly accuracy, to create a scare and occasional lacerations. So, the word ‘surgical’ precedes the strike in the title. The only similarity exists, in figuratively crossing over the L A C or L O C.  As you reach the end of the narrative, you might want to speed up the halted imagination, to recount your own experience with similar ‘surgical strikes’.

Keeping one’s own counsel, preferably in a deep freezer, would have been prudent. Alas! Oftentimes, this prudent realisation strikes later than sooner and always after the event. Like the proverbial croaking of frogs, I had once proudly declared, " If boiling a glass of hot water is culinary art, then, I am a Michelin rated chef; I could even conjure up a cup of black coffee!" What happened next was pretty much predictable; the croaking frog became a snake's meal!

Words boiled in anger flew thick and fast. I challenged the homemaker that I could showcase my talent, whatever be the menu. Having crossed the LOC or LAC, I   found myself in a mixer cum grinder. The veteran, who had handled many such threats in the kitchen, smiled wistfully and handed me a tray populated with the items needed for cooking. The meaning of that wistful smile hit me like a hammer blow. The tray did not come with a menu card or an instruction manual detailing whether the operation involved are chopping, slicing crushing or breaking. Flipping up the collar and rolling up the non-existent sleeves of my half-slacks, I approached the tasks at hand, awaiting on the tray.

The Onion strikes:

 As I hefted the first grenade like onion, a shrill voice commanded me to wash, dry and peel the first layer before cutting. I quickly replied a ‘on the job’ and hurried to complete the steps. But for that promoting, I would have ignorantly skipped them and landed in hot water along with the unwashed onions. The onions happily had a bath, a vigorous towelling and sat expectantly on the cutting board, which I fortunately remembered. As the ‘operation onion’ got underway, supported by the lachrymal glands, the shrill voice assailed my eardrums with “Did you wash and dry the board before use? It reminded me of the ‘shake the bottle before use’ instruction and you guessed it - I had overlooked the wise saying, both for the bottle and the cutting board.

Flustered and scrambling for an evasive reply, I ran the knife and managed a surgical strike on my left-hand index finger. At this point, I had no other option but to wash the cutting board and the onion, which had turned red with my blood. Somehow, the onions have been processed without additional finger-injuries. After dispatching the onion rings, chops and, dicings along with the tears I had shed, I hurried in search of a wash-proof band-aid. You know what? The empire struck back – I need only diced onions.  As a Michelin rated chef, can I cry foul, now? Me, the onion rings and chops, just sat in silence.

The coconut strikes:

Remembering it in time, I bathed the coconut and the lump of stone and towelled them dry. Before I could enjoy the satisfaction of methodically completing the preparatory works, the voice from somewhere in the house, took to the air – “Are you using the same cutting board? The diced coconut would be reeking with the smell of onion.”  I had this doubt - when both ingredients go into the same preparation, why this ruckus? To keep the flag of peace flying, I hurriedly washed the cutting board of 'operation onion fame' and called out, “I am aware of it.” Though the band-aid in time did not save from further injury!

When ready to use things are available, why buy a whole coconut and then go about breaking it, with this stone-on-coconut-smashing routine? Please keep your answers reserved or better in a sealed cover, and remember bitter pills are better swallowed fast, without hesitation! 

The coconut, the size of an apple sat in the palm of my left-hand and a ready to strike, dark coloured block of rock took position in my right-hand palm. Surveying for a vulnerable spot on the shell, I gave the coconut a 360 ° panoramic view of me and the kitchen walls. Drawing a deep breath, I struck the stone on the coconut shell, like a crashing meteor. When the stone landed on the shell, I jumped up in severe pain.  I had misjudged the size of the nut and the girth of the stone. I had scored a direct hit on the shell as well as my fingers. I came out of the first coconut strike, with minor laceration, gashes and not before donating blood for the cutting board, once more. Unable to find some cotton swabs and a roll of gauze, I ended up with grabbing a pair of gloves (shh...actually, meant for use in dishwashing). With renewed and painful effort, through my injured left-hand palm was ready to desert from further strikes, the shell broke, approximately into a 1/4^th and 3/4^th spheres.

“You broke the coconut into unequal parts or what? Can you at least manage to cut the gel into small pieces?”  I don't know whether I imagined this comment or really heard it! Done cannot be undone and a bell that has rung cannot be unrung.  With the injured left-hand, lifting its hand in non-cooperation, I coaxed and forced the right-hand, to complete the remaining operations.

The screwdriver strikes:

The thick gel (meat or copra or matured flesh) looked pristine and white. The omniscient voice spat out, “cut them into small cubes.” Forced to wear the mantle of a sculptor, to carve out small pieces, I looked for a knife (blunt, of course) or a screwdriver, whichever was in easy reach. The screwdriver besides the cooker beckoned me invitingly, saving a combing operation for a blunt knife.

 I decided to dice, after releasing the whole gel from the shell.  Mentally calculating the angle of attack and force to lever the gel out, I placed the 1/4th portion on the cutting board, I pushed the business end of the screwdriver, all along the line of actual contact, between the shell and the gel. This frontal attack failed, leaving a thick, brown scar along the line of contact. It was pure bad luck that I did not do a pre-inspection. The business end of the screwdriver had a coat of rust. Inadvertently, I had opened up another, unguarded front, ripe for another surgical strike.

The cover up needed an urgent options and a a blunt knife. Sweat was breaking out by the time I could collect a handful of coconut slices/slivers/misshapen cuboids with a brownish vein. Short of washing them with detergent, I did everything possible to remove the stain, which only resulted in spreading the battle scar wide and far. 

Who said that a blunt knife is harmless? The renewed vigour with which I poked the 3/4th portion, must have angered the knife, as it simply broke through the shell and dug into my already injured left-hand palm. I am not that stupid to count three strikes, on the same target, as a coincidence. Injury or not, the battle has to end. Somehow, I managed enough of sparkling white cuboids and rhomboids of coconut gel, artfully displayed on the cutting board. Are you wondering about the red oxide coloured coconut gel? They are interred safely for the earthworms to feed on!

The cooker strikes:

I realised rather late, when Edison’s bulb failed to glow, that the rusty screwdriver had something to do with the cooker and not with the coconut. The cooker handles on (vessel and the lid) have had serious disagreement. Unable to bear it anymore, the holding screws were threatening to come out and be done with it.  I felt happy that at least this work could be finished without an instruction manual, which anyways would not have detailed contingency plans.

An unwanted prompt rose in my head – don’t they use dissimilar metal screws to tighten parts like the lid/cooker? Something to do with differential expansions! Though having failed by the experiments many times, I never failed to do an experiment - foraged into my junk box and came up with suitable screws. Cajoling them to cooperate, I assembled the handles to the lid and the cooker vessel. The proof of the pudding moment came when I lifted the cooker. To my consternation, the insulator handles de-docked from the hardware. The sheared and untethered screwheads availing gravity assist, quietly fell on my feet. The hastily conducted failure analysis, which insulted the injury, propelled me, to a proper repair shop.

The icicles strike:

Not satisfied with all these bloodletting activities, the devil took the wheels only to ditched me once again. Was it blood thirsty for another surgical strike? What made me to open the fridge now? You better ask the all-knowing devil, racing on all wheel drive!  A look at the freezer compartment, instantly transported me to the North Pole. This, fridge-grown Arctic Circle, brought memories of the hanging garden of Babylon. Instead of vegetation, this garden was populated with icicles! Though it was a tantalising sight, I pitied those things that get stored there without protective gear. Having seen the glacier across the width and breadth of the freezer, the devil that drove me there asked, how can you leave it like that? 

I drove the sturdy spoon, on the ice drift, like it was a lawnmower. The cold fingers of worry gripped and kept on reminding me, about the awaiting potential damage to the freezer box. Reluctantly, a layer of ice-drift parted, exposing the hardened criminal lying in wait, underneath. The strength of the spoon and the force delivered were no match to the determination of the clinging icicles and the frozen over glacier.

Discarding the spoon and my caution to the frigid wind, I brought in a hefty screwdriver into play. Taking turns, I forcefully fist-tapped it, into the root of the hanging icicles and hardened skating rink. Different types of crackling sounds emanated and scared the day light out of me. Did I, inadvertently apply too much force? Fearing the worst, a sense of foreboding parachuted on me from somewhere. Not to miss out on the fun, my heart started to hammer at the ribcage. Giving me no time to rue, the front door opened and closed with a thud.

Trying to temporarily hide my misadventure, I quickly but gently closed the fridge. With two bags of vegetables, the homemaker entered the kitchen. The first thing she noticed was the forgotten-to-discard gloves on my hand. Why are you wearing the gloves? What these band-aid wrappers are doing on the floor? Are you trying to teach me geometry with these cuboids and rhomboids shaped coconut gel? Why the quantity is so less? What made you to dissect the onions into rings, dicings, choppings, slivers and wedges when I told you to dice them? Why don’t you say something, has the cat caught your tongue?

I almost fainted, hearing these intuitive, rapid-fire accusations. How would I admit to my misadventures in the kitchen? Had I responded, you would have found me in the middle of another self-inflicted surgical strike! Exasperated, she dumped the bags on the floor and walked away with her voice over. This deafening silence sounded scarier than the screaming of bunker busters.

I plead guilty to the charge of unauthorised border crossing. You have been watching me all along, would any one of you come in and aid my evacuation from the war zone? I have learnt my lesson – to stick to making black coffee and keeping quiet about my expertise and not bragging about Michelin star ratings! Like the rolling credit, at the end of a movie, slivers, slices, wedges, chopping, dicings, gratings and rings flashed past, in my mind’s eye.

 Any story has hidden moral. This too has its share:

Bluster is not a substitute for expertise.

Statements, made in jest, might land you in the kitchen.

A sheep has no business to be among wolves.

Frogs should learn to practice their music in vacuum.