FAREWELL JALAPEÑOS

My friend Matt is having a baby. It’s a big thing; bringing a brand new person into the world. From over here on this side of the fence, it looks kind of enormous.

I think Matt thinks so too. That’s why we ended up in the local Indian restaurant for what he called his ‘dad-do’, the paternal equivalent of the baby-shower. Him, his family and his friends, including me. And why not, I suppose.

Well, one reason is that it turns out I just can’t eat that kind of food anymore.

I used to love a spicy Indian; the rich flavours, the thick pungent aromas and the tenderly spiced meat that sank into the dish of tomatoes and chillis and long hot peppers. I would scoop it and stack my fork with pilau rice, just enough to balance, and then let the heat burst magnificently on my tongue, all washed down with a gulp of cool Cobra or Kingfisher.

Adam asked me a question from across the table tonight. I panicked, and felt my teeth crunch down on something I was now unexpectedly swallowing. It was long, thin, and in two pieces.

It was, I realised quite quickly, a green chilli.

The fire was instant. Actually I don’t think ‘fire’ is the best word for it - it was more like a bomb had gone of in my mouth and my throat had taken the blast. Eyes blinking, cheeks reddening, nose scrunched up, I did every single thing I could to contain the explosion but it was close to agony. My mind wandered to ambulances and stomach pumps and whether I’d see my family again. My head was bursting, and my throat was ripped to shreds. Water helped. I gulped some of that down straight away.

But I abandoned the rest of my plate after that. A quarter of a naan and a few scoops of jalfrezi were left uneaten. I wasn’t going back to it. Perhaps ever.

Could this be the day then, when I put spicy food behind me? Is this that point of no return, beyond which lie the korma and the tikka masala? Is it coconut curries from here on in, and a farewell to cayennettas and scotch bonnets?

I doubt Matt will have much time for this either to be honest. Pretty soon his life will be punctuated by the needs of his baby, revolving around a new kind of solar system where nights out to the local Indian are much fewer and further apart than they ever were for us as young men. I might not have been the only one bidding farewell to the jalapeños.

Anyway, I walked back to the car in the summer air. It was light, still warm, and balmy, in the way some summer nights just are. I don’t mind things changing, I realised. I don’t even mind the ‘suddenly’ moments. I guess the thing I don’t like so much is not being ready for a thing to change, and then only realising how not-ready I am for it, after it’s happened.

But that, I sighed to myself, is probably just the way life is most of the time. I’ll get used to it one day.