Cravings....Wierd and Amazing

These days, Dhairya has developed a sudden liking towards eating salt....yes table salt....It's one thing I know that as children grow, they tend to have special liking towards specific foods, but salt...of all.....

He comes to me in the kitchen, and in case he spots the salt container...it's the end of my patience...with all his tantrum skills... he makes sure I give him a little salt from the container direct on his tongue. Then he is as happy as a child can be....but this has also developed in me a habit of stacking all my salt stores at levels unreachable by him for a yet another 10 years atleast.

From the days of Sri Krisna, children are well known to be having queer tastes for specific foods. The Lord himself never spared a single pot of butter that he found anywhere. It also is known of him to like the mud in his garden while playing as a toddler with little bells ringing on his anklets and the yellow silk dhoti he was clad in.....

For one, I remember, my younger brothers when in childhood one went gaga over biting into soap bars, hiding away carefully from an investigative look from mom dear and the other kept getting chalk pieces from his play school in the pockets of his pockets trousers until one day we realised he loved the taste of the chalk...once at the tender age that he was, he put it in his nose and took a deep breath...such that the tiny piece of chalk got stuck inside the nostril and would not just come out, only to be extracted later by the tongs of a doctor....

I, for one, have never been told of my queer tastes in childhood, so assuming that I never had one. But I remember the tantrums I did put at a grocery store once, spotting a tray of Eggs, that I wanted to eat one. My Mom a staunch Jain, would obviously not relent at my such an unexpected and foolish demand, was only more anxious to finish her shopping and cart me away from the sight of the tray, later explaining to me why we are not allowed to eat eggs.

But then I cannot remember any other specific taste that I developed for anything, except in my later years, as a teenager. I discovered in the depths of the refrigerator, chilled milk brimming with the cream layer formed on top. I could burn it up when I did play the local games of hide and seek and ' lagauri' as a careless young girl. Soon studies and a realisation of growing up got a higher priority and all the physical exercise was reduced to a short walk to the bus stand or maybe to the friends house to exchange study notes. I never realised that the vanishing cream layer was only adding to my waist and thighs such that I never attained an enviable figure (ever in life). The sweet chilled taste of the melting thickened cream on my tongue...never failed to give me the satisfaction of the ultra wonderful creation of taste buds. The peak of it was during the study holidays, when at home, I had complete access to the creamy wonder and no time for even the short walks.

Apart from that, I have never had a specific craving for any food...never, not even when I was carrying Dhairya. My neighbour, on her way to motherhood has so sudden cravings for variety of foods that she does not even hesitate to run to the supermarket at odd hours to get a particular sauce of a particular brand or wake up at odd hours make Samosas and savour them...

I could maybe understand Dhairya's liking for chocolates or biscuits or cakes or puddings or butter and cheese ...but salt of all??