Listen to this post and more on this week’s episode of the Deep Sy podcast.
I sat at a dinner table in the “guest house” at the headquarters of a large nonprofit where I was a summer intern. Most interns lived with host families, but the office was well into the public-transit-less suburbs of Washington, D.C., and the government still won’t give blind people driver’s licenses (rude). So the org put me up in the guest house.
Standing across the table was the one other unlicensed intern, an international student I will call Suresh. He set down big serving bowls of rice and curry. When he offered to cook food from his region of southern India, I thought it would be a nice moment of cultural exchange. For Suresh, it was also a chance to eat something other than the TV dinners, lunch meats, and other bland American foods, processed to within an inch of being compost, which stocked the guest house fridge.
He was audibly excited; the smile in his voice was clear. He put food on his plate and sat for a moment taking in the smell. He picked up his silverware. Then, voice quivering like he couldn’t resist what he was about to do, he said, in a rush, “I’m going to eat with my hand.”
