Khanna Kazana (Treasure of Food)

I'm Indian.

We use turmeric in our food. It might stain your fingers yellow for an hour. It will definitely stain your clothes if you drop food on them. I don't think it smells. Why do you? 

Being a foreigner might be one the hardest things to do in life. I wouldn't really know. I practically grew up in this country, but I still understand some of the things that foreigners go through. When my parents got to this country, it was like they were on a whole new planet. The clothes were shorter, the hair was longer, and men didn't have mustaches! They adjusted. They live in this country now, as if they have lived in this country forever. My parent's accents aren't as strong anymore, and I don't even have one. If there is anything that makes me different from others, it's probably my food.

I remember when I was younger, my mom would give me Indian food rolled up in some chapati which is pretty much like a Mexican tortilla. Indian food has a different smell and some people don't like it at all. Kids at that age can be pretty vicious. They hated the smell of my food and they wouldn't be shy about telling me about it. For the first time, I felt like I was different from my peers. I became self-conscious about what I ate at school. I went to my mother about what they said and she told me that she had no problem in giving me peanut butter and jelly everyday, but was that what I really wanted? She knew how much I liked eating our native food and she knew that I wouldn't enjoy eating a sandwich every single day. She asked me if the food in the cafeteria sometimes made my nose wrinkle. I told her that the smell of bacon and beef sometimes made me feel nauseous. She just gave me a pointed look and said "If their food can smell, why can't ours?" From that day on, I didn't care that kids made fun of me for the way that my food smelled. As I got older, the less people there were to call me out on it. Now, my friends will eat my own food and leave theirs alone. My sister is different. Like me, she got made fun of for her Indian food and though my mother told her the same thing she told me, my sister decided to bring sandwiches to school instead. 

The smell of some meats still makes me feel like puking my guts up. I don't like it. I probably won't ever eat it, but I wouldn't tell someone that their food stunk any day. It's their food. If they enjoy it, let them. Indian food does have a strong scent but I didn't understand then, and even now, why people would comment on something that didn't really concern them. Food is universal. But food is different in every culture and that can cause some serious divides.