I'm Not Dying a Katok Virgin

Two years is the amount of time I have patiently confined myself to a diet regime of halal meat that strictly meant Indian/Pakistani cuisine in long stretches of time. Two years is half the duration of my complete stay in Chicago. Two years, simply said, was halfway through the battle against myself.

Yet, I have failed myself. I am not dying a katok virgin, and I'm not proud of that fact.

You think I'm religious? I think not. I think going katok is the least of my worries in the mass of sins and debt I've accumulated against the Almighty. In fact, I don't think it's such a big deal as some legitimize this action by claiming that it stems from the nawaitu of the proprietor. Believe in a valid reason, they say, and your action is vindicated from the wraths of dosa.

Now that is my problem. My being in a major city that allows me access to halal meats and poultry forces me to believe it's not permissible for me. Therefore I have sinned.

Pacing around town with an empty stomach on a cold October night in Chicago was perhaps not the smartest action. The time was 10.30pm. It was a time when restaurants were already closed or were closing their doors to customers, and Cheesecake Factory saw to a long queue waiting for their awesome cheesecake suppers. It was a time when famished people who decided to forgo a sensible early dinner like me was bereft of many choices. Walking into a tavern whose menu bore Buffalo Wings as a specialty was not much help either.

So I succumbed to the physical pain of walking for too long; the psychological angst of waiting too long; the incessant seduction of the devil; and to the expectation of consuming a gastronomical treat I yearned ever so much.

The buffalo wings was not worth the smeared record that was my strongest principle. Dry and tasteless, the buffalo wings repleted me with the strongest lesson that gluttony doesn't pay. I swear that would be my first and last.

I do not blame the night on my companion (who, by the way, happened to take pictures with the intention of blackmailing me). I blame myself. But I am not so intent on wasting my time on matters of the past, the control of agency and the complications of timing and circumstances. Rather, I am more worried about the sense of self and the grip on limitations and principles I am slowly losing.

In more ways than one, this episode tilts me to a series of self-doubt I am not strong enough to combat alone. Sometimes, I feel more alone than ever eventhough the materials of life, I claim, keeps me happy. Friends are long immersed in their own pursuits of academia or life in their separate colleges, while close friends have new close friends of their own.

Self-doubt is undoubtedly self-destructing. I am praying for a turnaround.