The Inevitable

There are two kinds of food poisoning. There's the kind where you eat something bad, you feel sick, you throw up, and then you feel better pretty much right away and are back on your feet. Then there's the other, more insidious kind that sneaks up on you, accumulating slowly over several days as pretty much everything you consume has a bacterial culture that's different from what you're used to and may even be a little off, but not enough to really make you sick right away. But when the accumulated stuff has nicely settled in your system and reaches a tipping point and finally gets you, it knocks you off your feet. This is the kind I got.

I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that on top of all the obvious things your body does in its attempts to relieve itself from the offending invaders, mine managed to give out to the extent that I actually fainted. At the Indigo Deli, of all places. Thankfully, I was already in the bathroom by that point, so it wasn't too embarrassing, and thankfully it was a very clean bathroom too. And it was before I actually threw up, so it could have been worse. But really, it was horrible. I barely made it home (thankfully, Ritesh was with me) and spent the entire day in bed, with chills, body aches, a bit of a fever, and that ugly, vicious, persistent nausea. You might say I was asking for it, and you'd be right, what with all the bits of chutney here and fruit juice there - I know, I shouldn't have. I did feel this coming a few days before and took antibiotics and thought I'd nipped it in the bud. Not so.

It took me more than a week to recover. I probably would have gotten better sooner, but this happened on my last day in Bombay, so I had a plane to catch the next day, and then spend a few days in transit in London, which were pretty miserable. After that, being back at work in LA was even worse, what with that awful nausea that hit every time I ate, and the jet lag (that 12h time difference is a killer). Ah, the agony.

But the reason I could make it on that plane from Mumbai to London after spending a day in bed totally incapacitated, was this: a stomach-soothing curd rice, which is rice with fresh, homemade yogurt, salt, mustard seeds, a bit of green chili and coriander, eaten cold:

Ritesh's cousin's family, upon hearing about my sorry state, went through the trouble to make this from scratch and then got on a train all the way from Andheri to deliver it to my hotel room! Can you believe that? And it worked, too! Not only did it taste great, but I could actually keep it down - a little bit at a time. That, in combination with rehydration salts and coconut water (another good source of electrolytes) was the reason I was able to make that flight. Thanks so much, guys - I can't get over just how great you are! In Brazil, people say "he's got a heart the size of Brazil" when someone is that kind, caring and generous - well, you all have a heart the size of India!