After speaking to his parents like they've seen me graduate from pig-tails to pony tails, I ask the Shaadi.com supposed suitor questions that I wish he asked me. Sitting through him explain about his MBA and other professional achievements, I consciously, inoffensively corrected my last question: "What do you do in Norway...?"
"I meant, what do you do when you're alone in Norway?" I asked, hoping I'd get a peek into his universe.
My eyes were rolling until he spoke about cooking. I let out a giggle and asked, "Cooking? You mean like making tea?"
A long pause later, a serious reply stood against the light-weight bullying from a woman who didn't know how to make the perfect bowl of rice until a year ago.
"No, I mean, like Chicken or Pasta. From scratch", he explained.
Making Pasta is one of the most holy acts of cuisine. It is an intense, loved and relished activity in any Italian household. Pasta has 4 Main ingredients - Flour, eggs, water and olive oil. There could be variations to the ingredients. For example not all traditional Pasta have egg in them. Some have spinach or chilli, it depends on the region where the Pasta originates.
So how's a girl to choose the very best way? If you're this girl, you obsess. You make batch after batch—dozens and dozens of batches, in fact—to find out.
"Where are you studying in Switzerland?"
" At the University of the Southern Switzerland, or SUPSI. Like S-U-P like Sup?..." I stare at the trees and suddenly I hear only the rain pouring outside the window. Sup? Really?
"And S-I, like Si!..." Si? SI? Really?
"Can you repeat that? University of?...."
"Are you noting this down?"
"No, no, I'm not that kind of a guy."
I laugh at his defence, yet again.
You walk around dusted and streaked with flour, crumbly bits of dough crusted to the end of your sleeves. You make spreadsheets and charts, and sometimes you maybe even cry.
"I learnt how to make Pasta here. I think I troubled most of my Italian friends with my horrible pasta making skills and they gave up teaching me how to make the perfect Pasta..."
I wondered if he was smiling right now.
"Eventually, to rid my guilt, I started making Indian food for them and they love it!"
"So you know how to cook Indian food?", he asked.
"Not until last year! My parents are really proud of me now I hope."
He probably thinks I'm a spoilt brat already.
You make all-egg pastas, pastas made with just whites, just yolks, and nothing more than water. You try different flours and check resting times at fifteen minute intervals for almost an entire day.
"I'm kind of a spoilt brat back in India..", I admit sheepishly.
Seriously, as an Interaction Designer, the first thing I should design is something that stops the tongue uttering what's supposed to remain in the head. Wait, did I hear a soft laugh or did I imagine that?
"So how long have you been living in Lugano?"
"Almost a year now.." I say, thinking about the first time I smelled the air of Lugano at the train station. It had a hint of dew or maybe it was moss, something fresh. In the mornings on the way to school, I walked through a park on somedays to catch a bus. I would smell the same fragrance of freshness while running downhill...will I miss it when I leave?
You taste more ratios of egg yolk to egg white to flour than you care to admit. You add oil, you add salt, you add oil and salt.
" I really like it here. I've explored so much and I think it has had a great influence on my thinking.."
"Yeah, you become independent and...."
I didn't let him finish that sentence, "I was always independent. But I wanted to live by myself, manage my own things..."
"Yeah.."
"I wouldn't have been able to do that back in India. I'd probably be thought of as this daughter who doesn't love her parents enough to live in the same house"
Actually, I don't think so. Maybe the people I know would be taken aback about the idea of living away in the same city. But I do know friends who live in a different house. Why did I feel that it would be an unthinkable act?
You wave forkfuls of fettuccine at your friends and family and colleagues, wrangling them into taste test after taste test. You read every book you can get your hands on. Your forearms get totally ripped.
"Yeah, I understand. People here leave their houses at 18, figure it out, make a living, setup a family..."
"I wish i left home earlier, at 16 or something when I had the opportunity to.."
Really? Do you want to also tell him of your other regrets like how you never won the Nobel Peace Prize because you fought the demons inside you that pulled you down everytime you tried to reach for something intellectually higher? Go on, I'm sure he'd be amused.
" It's good, it's an experience"..
Few minutes after, we finally hung up. I've always been curious to see how men answered a call and hung up. It speaks volumes about them. He struggled to start when he called but hanging up was easier than I thought.
Does he think I'm a chatterbox? Did I say something stupid? Or did I boast about something? How does my mind manage to make me feel so wrong about a phone call so naturally, unexplainably normal?
Eventually, you realise that there's no perfect Pasta.
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Pasta sections from "Science of the best fresh Pasta" by Niki Achitoff-Gray. http://www.
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