My tryst with tita-kerela (it's the Assamese word for bitter gourd/karela)...

Tita-kerela is a medium which can divide people into three groups...the first group eats it with adequate affection (I, too, fall in this category. I like to eat boiled tita-kerela, however am not very fond of the fry). The second group can not even think of taking a bite. Apart from these two, there is another category of people, who forcefully consume tita-kerela for the sake of good health. Though being a member of the first category, I had a bitter experience with tita-kerela once! I am sharing that in the following.

It was the year 2000, I was studying in standard IX. My experience in the kitchen was near zero, as I used to spend the leisure time in reading novels, books etc. Breakfast to Dinner, everything used to reach me on time, on my desk! My visits to the kitchen used to be restricted only to share the interesting stuffs, that I found in a book or in a newspaper, with mom. On one such day, after sharing something with mom, I sat on the bench in the kitchen, deeply immersed in some thought. Mom was busy in peeling and cutting a pile of tita-kerela for making tita-kerela fry. Suddenly my toddler brother started crying, hearing that Mom went out of the kitchen to see him. Before leaving, she asked me to throw the garbage (mainly the peels of onion and tita kerela) away. Rarely being assigned to a job in the kitchen, I proudly accomplished it and went back to my den. After half an hour, there came the smell of hot oil from the kitchen followed by a huge roar from mom. Before I could realize what's going on, she came in front of me with an empty plate in one hand and a bowl full of onion-tita kerela peels....

Yes, you have guessed it right! Immersed in deep thought, I managed to finish the job well! After throwing the tita-kerela pieces, neatly peeled and cut, in the dustbin, I carefully covered the onion-tita kerela peels in the bowl with a plate and went back to my room. Well, do I really need to write what happened next?.....

PS: Mom has not forgotten this incident, even after 15 years! She still thinks that I did it intentionally just because I did not like to eat tita-kerela fry!