School Lunch
When it comes to school lunch, there are two types of people: those who bring their lunch and those who buy. For most of my life, I brought my lunch. I remember each of my lunchboxes. Like the blue one with a soccer ball on it that I forgot at school when I was in kindergarten and was too scared to get from the lost & found. Or the boxy, navy one that would hang from my backpack every day in middle school.
School lunch is an immensely personal thing. The lunch you bring shows a glimpse into where you come from, the person you are outside of the concrete walls of school. Although my peers would bring square bread sandwiches with lunchmeat and cheese or PB&J, I never had anything of the sort. My mother’s penchant for good quality bread from the Publix Bakery, my vegetarianism and my allergy to peanuts turned those sandwiches into slightly misshapen cheese sandwiches and jam sandwiches, wrapped in aluminum foil.
I didn’t ever bring Indian food to school when I was younger since I didn’t enjoy it very much and loved the opportunity to eat the same foods as my peers and had enough trouble countering the questions about my vegetarianism. Everyone who found out about it would start the line of questioning, “so you’ve never eaten meat?” and “if you were stuck on a deserted island and there’s no other food, would you eat meat?” or even the incredibly clever “how are you eating oreos? That has meat in it.” I’ve heard all of these questions countless times by this point, but they were probably some of my first experiences of being different from my peers, deviating from the norms that people love to preserve. It was frustrating as a child, and it may have been why I was always such a stickler for the rules.
As I grew older, I started to change my ways as I stopped caring about what other people thought of my food. I would buy food from school from time to time, realizing that I hadn’t been missing out and was also saving money by not eating gross amounts of fries and unidentifiable substances. By the 8th grade, Indian food had entered the trading floor that sometimes was a major part of each lunch period. I would often ask my mom to pack me extra fruit snacks so that I could score an extra piece of paratha from my lunch neighbor.
At the end of high school, school lunch was rarely anything other than some preparation of rice. I would eat with a group of friends of all colors and ethnicities, so what we ate never really mattered all that much. We had grown up and what we ate was just what we ate and nothing more. Even though our classmates would sometimes drop the classic “smells like curry” comment, it didn’t matter anymore.
Now that I’m in college, school lunch doesn’t really exist anymore. I still get care packages from my parents filled with a variety of different Indian foods. If anything, I’m the envy of my friends for having delicious home-cooked food. School lunch has changed a lot over the years, but so have I.
Drops of the Week
where I *drop* recommendations of cool things this week
Playlist
flaming hot cheeto - playlist I made based on the song “Flaming Hot Cheeto” by Clairo. I really like her stuff, but there’s not a lot like it. The playlist is a combination of chill beats, electronic music, and alternative R&B
Toy Story
The Story of Animoodles - Animoodles are magnetic mix and max plushies to inspire making in children. The story is rooted in design and prototyping, so it’s incredibly interesting to me!
Longform Article
“The Politics of Poetry” by David Orr - interesting piece connecting politics and poetry and how linked they really are.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have any comments/concerns or fan/hate mail for me, you know how to reach me (links below). Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends too! :~)
Love,
Nikhil