A pause

 

I am a Biriyani! My Souvenirs helped me figure that out!

Before you conclude anything, there's a story behind my conclusion.
Someone once asked me "what food would you choose to define who you are?" Nobody ever asked me that. It was the moment of Awakening for me.  And after introspecting my whole life and choices for 10 minutes, I finally said "oats". I looked at her "what the..?" expression and continued to share my wisdom. I said "Coz it's plain, it's tasteless, most people eat it only when they are sick, but it's healthy. Horses eat it!" when I got back home and went to my desk, there was all this stuff that I collected throughout my life. The stuff my mom calls "trash" and I call souvenirs.

Aren't souvenirs just the representatives of the deep memories of something or even someone? If that's the case, then souvenirs maketh man! Well actually memories do, but souvenirs are special memories. And there's a reason we call it 'special'. These special memories are the ingredients in the making of my life so far and of course, I've had a fairly interesting life so far. With all the spices, masala, and drama I had, I concluded that I'm a biriyani and not oats.
Biriyani has so many masalas, so many ingredients, takes so much time to prepare, even has a very interesting history, and of course, has a dead animal in it too. But Whatever, People like it! narcissism? Hopefully not.
My Souvenirs include a stolen record, a chain that I bought when I visited the ruins of velankanni soon after the 2004 tsunami, pebbles from a stream in Austria, and many more. These are my Pensieve.
From the worst fall to the best adventures.  Each one of These souvenirs is a memory, an ingredient and it has some story to tell. These souvenirs represent who or whatever I am now and show the kinda life I had, to others. It doesn't necessarily have to be good though. But to me, These are special and reminds me of the reasons for it to be 'special'. Don't we all have something to remind us of that?

And so, here are some of the ingredients that made me the biriyani that I am today.
PS: don't even think it's Hyderabadi biriyani. It's bhai biriyani. 
Always.