Curry Goat and Calypso (standard:travel stories, 2432 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Feb 17 2008	Views/Reads: 3490/2396	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The story is about a person that born into a brahmin family in south India always want to experience eating meat (which is prohibited in south Indian brahmin caste). Later on he travels to Trinidad, an island in the Caribbean to pursue Ph.D., in the proce

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elderly East Indian widow with a large house. Since all her children 
had left home, she rented out the rooms for the University students. 
Juggernaut was one of five students at that time occupying the rooms at 
her house on Jackson Street. She was very kind to him, knowing that he 
came from her forefather's old country. 

On the first day, she served him a minced meat sandwich for lunch. He
took a bite and spitted out in disgust. It tasted so different from 
chicken or lamb or goat meat. “Is something wrong?” Mrs. Lakhan asked. 
“I am sorry, the meat tastes different,” he said with little 
embarrassment. “Oh my god, you are not a pundit are you?” She closed 
her mouth with her right hand as if she committed a sin. “No, I am not 
a pundit but I am from Brahmin family,” he said, distancing himself 
from pundits and priests who comply with strict rules of not eating 
meat at all. He wants to keep his options open to eat chicken, lamb, or 
goat meat, if opportunity arises. Mrs.Lakhan was apologetic and 
explained that her grand parents were Hindus but then converted to 
Presbyterians as had many Hindus in Trinidad, and they eat beef among 
other meats. 

Mrs. Lakhan and Juggernaut developed a very cordial relationship over
the next few months. He learned from her that Indians came to the 
Island on boats and during several months of travel, some Hindus became 
Muslims and vice versa as they changed allegiance to their faith 
depending upon the religious belief of mates they met on the boat. Some 
lower-caste Hindus changed their last names to upper-caste names. Some 
even gave themselves Brahmin priestly last names such as Sharma, 
Sastry, Parsuram, and so on to get privileged and less-strenuous jobs 
of preaching, conducting marriages and other religious ceremonies. 

Belal, one of the boarders at Mrs.Lakhan's house was from Bangla Desh.
From day one, Belal was on the move to date local women. Though a 
Muslim, Belal introduced himself as Lal to pose himself as a Hindu to 
trick local Hindu girls to get a date.  It didn't make any difference. 
He had a hard time getting dates with Trinidad women of either Indian 
or African or mixed-race decent.  Among other things, he read Bengali 
poetry to lure them.  Trinidad women have little interest in literature 
of any kind, let alone in poetry. They liked to dance to Calypso music 
during Carnival, and Parang (a kind of Venezuelan Spanish music) during 
Christmas season. 

Belal wanted to move out and rent an apartment for more freedom. One day
he came with a proposition Juggernaut couldn't refuse, a two-bedroom 
apartment at walking distance to the campus. “You bring your girls and 
I bring mine, and nobody complains about us,” he said. Mrs.Lakhan was 
almost in tears when Juggernaut told about moving out with Belal. But 
he couldn't resist the offer. 

East Indians in Trinidad are mostly self-employed as farmers or
small-business owners since they came from agrarian backgrounds whereas 
blacks are more urbane and dependent on government employment for a 
living. Blacks disliked anything Indian, except Indian women and curry 
goat. Some Blacks referred to Indians as ‘Coolies', a derogatory 
expression, not knowing in India the word  ‘Coolie' is extensively used 
on daily basis to call a porter for carrying luggage at railway or bus 
stations or market places. 

Often, Belal visited Woolworths, a department store near the campus to
check out the sales women, particularly, one in the toiletries 
department. He visited so often, the store manager, a British national, 
warned Belal not to mess with his staff. Several months after this 
incident, the store was closed for good either from the curse Belal put 
on the store or just the mismanagement. Belal and Juggernaut shared the 
kitchen, though they cooked separately. Belal cooked goat meat with 
pungent odor. The smell of goat meat bothered Juggernaut at first but 
he got slowly adjusted. The aroma was so strong; it entrenched into 
pots and pans in the cupboards in the kitchen permanently. 

“A Brahmin like you cooking next to me, while I am chopping meat is
something,” said Beala on many occasions.  Juggernaut didn't mind this 
at all. As matter of fact, to Belal's surprise, he took a bet and 
tasted his goat meat curry. This was the beginning of a long 
gastronomical expedition, “from eating vegetable dishes to goat meat.” 
Juggernaut stumbled into a great recipe for cooking goat meat with a 
mixture of Indian spices or curry powder.  News spread in on the campus 
that Juggarnaut was an expert on curry goat.  The staff and students 
gave him the nickname ‘curry goat.' 

During the Christmas dance party at the campus, Belal went wild, almost
pulling women from their chairs to dance with him. Most obliged, but 
when he tried slow and dirty dance, they found a reason to avoid him 
altogether. On the whole, he declared it was a success and waited for 
the telephone to ring. Then he told me that the women were playing hard 
to get. He started using local slang like “liming” for hanging out. He 
learned how to make a pass at women by making a hissing sound, a kind 
of whistling.  He said he was busy “tackling” women, an expression for 
checking out women. Often he said, he was “scrunting” for women, a 
local slang for depravation.  The best Juggernaut could do was to 
console him and give some encouragement to attend fetes or dance 
parties with loud calypso or steel band music.  At fetes, one can 
virtually pick up any Indian, Black, or Dougla (mixed race) women for 
dancing without any fuss. Juggernaut accompanied Belal to some fetes on 
and off campus. The minute Belal started dancing, the woman with whom 
he was dancing somehow disappeared into the crowd, leaving Belal alone. 


Belal's favorite drink was coke and “Old Oak,” a local rum, or “Carib,”
a local beer. He sipped and then chewed, making loud sounds to feel the 
after taste. He never became disoriented even after several drinks. He 
kept drinking with a mischievous smile and tried to jump to the music, 
throwing his hands up into the air to mingle with local crowd, but 
still he stood apart. 

“Belal, you should first practice dancing for calypso at home, then at
the fetes, then you can impress the women with your fancy footwork,” 
advised jaggernaut. 

Both visited a nearby market in Tunapuna, an area close the campus and
bought calypso music. Most lyrics were hard to understand but when they 
did, it was all about lovemaking.  Belal practiced by jumping to the 
tunes, and eventually abandoned the jackass act altogether and declared 
that Bengalis (people originally from the Province of Bengal in India) 
like him were good in writing poetry and cooking fish. Trinidad turned 
Belal into a weekend drunk and Juggernaut into an expert in cooking 
curry goat. At last Juggernaut put his Brahmin natural cooking skills 
into practice, though not with ingredients appreciated back home. 

Several months after moving into their own apartment, Belal still had a
hard time cajoling women to visit. Most women suspected his ulterior 
motives instantly on the very first date with him. At last, they came 
out with an idea of throwing a fete in their apartment as a final 
salvo. They invited couples and single women only, but they brought 
their own friends as well.  In Trinidad, if you invite one, you invite 
all.  People jumped to the Calypso music and made slow dirty dancing to 
melodies. For Juggernaut dancing is a spectator sport so he kept 
himself busy in dishing out curry goat and steamed rice. The blacks 
went crazy for his food.  An attractive black woman pulled him from the 
table and danced in a slow motion.  He held her delicately, under the 
watchful eyes of her husband with a physique of a wrestler, while she 
squeezed Juggernaut tight from top to bottom, whispering into his ears 
how much she liked his curry goat.  He felt her body shaped like a 
South Indian Temple carving. After the dance, Belal came up to him, 
gave a big sigh, rolled his eyes, and went back to crowd, dancing with 
his hands up in air, Trinidad style. During the party, Belal tried hard 
to lure women into his bedroom without any success. But, he did find 
out later that someone made use of his bedroom during that night. The 
next morning, Juggernaut woke up to the soft knock on the apartment 
door. It was the shapely black woman he danced with the evening before. 
She entered the apartment with a smile.  Walking around quietly in the 
room, she said she was in the area and dropped by for a chat. 
Juggernaut was still in his nightclothes, making plans to cleanup the 
place. He thought she came for the left over curry goat, she said she 
loved so much. After standing a few minutes, looking straight into his 
eyes, she said, “you cow,” and rushed out of the apartment.  His 
inaction could be a blessing in disguise, considering her husband with 
a physique of Bhima, a character in Hindu mythology known for wrestling 
and culinary skills. A famous dish, Nalla Bhima Paka was named after 
him. Juggernaut thought that he has nothing in common or any thing 
close to Bhima's abilities in cooking either. He has no clue what this 
black woman saw in him except the curry goat he cooked. 

Belal was turned down by every woman he tackled. One day, he said he was
moving out to rent a one-bed room apartment for himself for more 
freedom and opportunities to lure women. He said Juggernaut lured women 
away from him with his curry goat. 

After years of scrunting for women for years, he stopped making hissing
sounds to tease women and his scrunting took a dive at last. 
Eventually, Belal gave up calypso dancing and settled for a wife from 
Bangla Desh, a religious woman interested in poetry and cooking fish. 
Juggernaut's own interest in eating meat lessened as years went by and 
the dish “curry goat” only brought back memories of slow dancing with 
the black woman in Trinidad. 


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