Chicken Cubes

Like all orphanage Bal Mandir also gets gets occasional donations from irregular donors, in from of food, and not all types of food mellows on the normal food nor the it could be mixed with our regular foods, such as chicken cubes. Somebody had donated, I don’t know how much, but many cartoons of it, to be used for the children. Small portion of donations invite more irregularities in its use, as those do not fit the exactly to feed the around 200 children, but come on it was chicken cubes so, I guess it escaped those corruption which could have been best for us. other better tasting foods always finished faster than it needed.

We used to have pudding in the morning, every day for years and years and years as the roasted multi grain flour came from America without fail and it came in abundance to have it in our morning and day mid-day snacks. Yes, they tried it in many ways to give us. Nepali meal at 8:30 before school and mid-day snacks at 1:00 [during school break time] and then evening meal at 6:00. So chicken cube did not fit in, any kind of food we take. But, it was a donation and the rule of donation is to use it anyway. How is not important, right.

Not knowing, how to use it, but have to use it condition, they started giving it to us by mixing it in the morning pudding, which needed sugar for seasoning and chicken cube without a fail contains too much salt in it.

At some point I have stoped talking my morning pudding for some time just cant remember when. Could this be the time ? Damn my bad memory power !

Forget it now, that it spoiled the taste of pudding, it also gave the nasty color to the lovely looking and yummy tasting pudding in the morning. And then there were always the Chef Ramsay Gordon copy cats. In my case it was SanuMaya Tamang, who replaced him in his absence, “this pudding just looks like a baby shit”, just when I was about to put in my mouth.

When this made my mood go sour and I am about to push it aside to throw it on the dust bin more because of the comment than the taste that chicken cube spoiled, then she would add next, “what have I said wrong ? cant you eat it now ? you are not royals to throw the foods”.

While growing up in Bal Mandir, it was taken for a granted that, we do not respect ourselves and to each other. Self esteem was hugely vanished things in our life. This really hammered my brain trying to understand so hard for so long, why we acted like that ? or more than that treated each other like that ? But today its no surprise thing, for me to learn, it was because the grown ups around us [including junior and seniors staff at Bal Mandir], just did not show us an ounce of respect and so the children just copy it from them, not even knowingly why.

For Gods shake, we were growing up in an orphanage; they [ the staffs ] were all there to take care of us; but, instead those staffs were the one who made us feel inferior and bad from our skin. They vocalised our conditions to curse us or make us feel bad for more than any other person alive on the planet. Its still hard for me to know the exact reason behind those mindset. As a child we just bought the concept that we are not worthy of anything especially respect and self esteem.

Every body knows, grown ups hate their jobs; but when those staff hate their job for this or that reason they end up hating us.No, its the job they hated and not me but like so many others who grew up in Bal Mandir and any other orphanage know this very well, that I was their job. I just could not shake my head off, even today, that they hated their job not me.

And who on earth will mix chicken cubes, on yummy dish like pudding ? It was like telling someone who is so fond of ice cream to enjoy it with a Nepali pickle - hot and spicy.