I hate strawberries

This is a real incident, what it demonstrates is nothing but presence of mind and true spirit ,( my devotion to cooking too). My sister loves strawberries. I worked in Dharwad – (that’s a beautiful place in North Karnatka ) for a year and strawberries are cheaper over there. She never asked me to get her anything so when she insisted on getting strawberries I had to do it. I got two small boxes of strawberries and it looked fresh and red but we had no refrigerator where I lived but its just a matter of day I thought, leaving it on the refractory table . I was travelling to home for a meeting in Kerala. Travelling from Dharwad is always adventurous because there’s only one train to Kerala that’s a weekly train and it takes 26 hrs . So if you don’t travel that day its either go to Bangalore and then Kerala which is 20 hrs but difficult to get train tickets, or go to Karwar ( near Goa – 6 hrs from Dharwad). From Karwar you have Netravathi to Kerala. This is my usual route but its tedious. So I started my journey to Karwar with my luggage and the strawberries. The bus was thickly packed and as it neared Karwar we had fisherfolk on bus so you can imagine the ambience with villagers from coastal side smelling fishy …. I could see my luggage being stamped ruthlessly and I was worried about the strawberries.

I reached the station at 6pm and had two hours to board the train. I went to the waiting room to inspect the strawberries. The sight of the boxes bled my heart. They were nearly jammed. I felt bad for my sister, her unfinished, unbaked shortcakes. I had no options but throw them. But suddenly a wave of craziness came over me. I rummaged my bag and saw two bottles of ayurvedic medicinal powder mom send for me , I was fed up of them and was taking home to return them .I emptied the contents and washed it with the water I had. The medicines being bitter , mom had send some powdered sugar to mix along .I filled some water into both the bottles , added as much sugar I could and cleaned the strawberries and put them into it. I felt like a life saver who saved the lives of half kg itsy, bitsy, cute strawberries. Thanks to my biology teacher who taught us food preservation. Though in train the sugar syrup leaked on to my government documents and by the time I reached home I was in a mess. But the whole episode made me feel nice.
But when she baked the cake and praised the strawberries I didn’t have the heart to tell her how her strawberries travelled the borders of Karnataka.

But ain’t I a crisis manager ;)

You might think i am crazy but then again i think i am most of the time .....i would still carry strawberries or gooseberries for my loved ones ....in the most thickly packed trains ... that's me.... But i hate strawberries... i tell you.