THE barbeque season was in full swing. The festivities could be seen on many rooftops. Well, the sight wasn’t important, olfactory sensations told the stories of the pleasures people delved into. The aroma of kebabs filled the air. The temptation was irresistible.
Oh well, why should it be resisted after all? My friends and I decided to have one such barbeque of our very own. Although I wasn’t the mastermind behind the idea, I cannot help but admit being totally thrilled about it. This was the first time we had plunged into this sort of activity, something generally indulged in by adults who are more skilled at handling a barbecue. Yet the kind of a lot that we were, we couldn’t resist any adventure.
So then, it was all decided. The day and venue were set. Everything seemed to be perfect. Yes, at least it seemed to us, except for a little problem — little because that was what we considered it to be — our parents wouldn’t allow us to a barbecue on our own.
It took a lot of convincing and coxing. Somehow, our parents gave in. I still cannot conclude whether it was wise of them to do so. Or perhaps they wanted us to be taught a lesson for not complying with their wishes.
The D-Day finally arrived, we were all filled with excitement! The preparations were all done, or so we thought. All of us had attended a barbecue at one time or the other so we felt we knew what was to be done. Just put spices in the meat, skewer it and roast it on burning coals!
When we got together in the evening of our little barbeque party, we took out the meat we has stored in my friend’s freezer, ready to get started. It then dawned upon us that it had to be thawed, which would take hours!
Panic stricken, we tried all the possible ways to get a quick result. It still took us three hours, which meant it was already dinnertime. Determined not to seek help from any elder, we then quickly applied on it all the spices we could think of. I assure you, we thought it was the most beautiful combination of spices anyone had created!
Marination was some process we had never heard of. Already we were feeling the hunger pangs, we couldn’t afford to waste time on such novelties.
Quickly we tried to push the meat through the skewers, what a tiring task it was! And then we carried all the things we needed for cooking to the rooftop of my house.
My friend Ali was tired and when he tried to wipe his forehead, unfortunately, he did so with spicy hands and the spice entered his eyes. We ushered him downstairs to wash his face but it didn’t help much and he was teary-eyed the rest of the evening.
More friends arrived with coal, and set about to arrange it on the barbeque rack and light it up. Soon it looked as if they had crept out directly from a coal mine! Finally, after a lot of attempts and fanning of the coal, we got a fire going and the cooking started.
We had no idea about the cooking time and were not bothered. We would know when the meat was cooked, or so we thought. When the meat started to burn, we took that smell as the usual heavenly aroma we had smelled when our parents did barbeques! However, we did managed to get some kebabs cooked just right and decided to eat the burnt ones too because we were now just too tired and hungry.
Everyone wanted to take part in making the kebabs and nobody had bothered about getting the parathas from the shop, so the only option left was to use bread instead.
The moment we put the first bite in our famished mouths, everyone stared at each other with the most absurd of expressions — it was the most horribly tasting kebab we had ever had! We could have put up with the semi-burnt and semi-raw meat but the spices — mixed at will without any culinary experience, made the meat almost inedible.
Our effort had ended in disaster and we were still hungry.
And what was worst was the fact that we had to clean up the mess we had created in the name of adventure.
It sure was an adventure we would never forget or repeat.
