Leg Piece

Retribution is a dish best served spicy.

When I was four or five, my dad laid down a strict nutritional rule for the household: three times a week, the children were to eat chicken for dinner. As a doctor, he was concerned that my sister and I weren’t getting enough protein. My parents revealed to us much later that their government salaries would run out in the first week meeting basic expenses, but they didn’t break the chicken rule.

“We wouldn’t get a kilo, just half a kilo, and after the first few times we would get 250 grams, but Dad insisted that we always keep some in the fridge”, Mom told us. The problem, however, with cooking just 250 grams of chicken for the family’s dinner is that the dish would contain only one leg piece. There’s a random assortment of other pieces - thigh, breast, wing, neck - but just the one leg. When a family of four sits down to eat, how do they choose the heir to that exclusive, indivisible leg piece?

My sister was the first-born, and naturally, everyone’s favourite. She was spoiled by all - her birthday celebrated each month with a pastry, every song re-written to feature her at its centre. She enjoyed her uncontested dominion over the family empire. Until I came along. When I was born, they carefully put me in her arms and asked what she thought of her little brother. “Achha hai…till when is he staying with us?” – “Forever”, Mom replied, as the rest of the family laughed at her adorable question. My sister saw no humour in this.

As deeply loved as my sister was, I was the younger child and only son of our Punjabi-Delhi home. That’s hard to top. She was everyone’s best friend, my Nani would reveal her secrets from college with a hushed “don’t tell your Mom”. She knew the family tree better than Dad and called distant uncles to wish them happy birthday. I did no such thing. I didn’t have to. I was royalty.

Let me be clear: my parents are well-educated and liberal, they come from a long line of Ph.Ds on either side, and my mother is a feminist who taught at an all girls’ college her whole working life. They had all the right ideas about equality, and favouritism was out of the question. It would never, ever happen. Unless there was a resource-crunch.

And so, it came to be that my sweet sister - four years elder, significantly wiser, the reader and dreamer of the house, class topper while I had my finger up my nose all day - lost her pre-emptive right to the leg piece. They offered her all kinds of justifications - “Arey let him eat, you’re his didi”, “His cricket coach says he needs to build muscle”, “He really wants it…just look at him”, and even the occasional “Okay today you have it”. But by and large, the leg piece found its way onto my plate. My sister was forced to accept this eventually.

I must have been ten and had no understanding of the larger power dynamics at play. To me this was a game, and I was happy to generally end up on the winning side. When the folks weren’t looking, I would catch her eye and pick up the leg piece to taunt her, making a gross, ecstatic face, rubbing masala all over my mouth. She whispered in my ear at the dinner table, “One day somebody will take your leg piece and you’ll just have to sit there and watch.”

---

The second quickest way for someone to learn patience and adjustment is by having a child. The quickest is having two together. Our girls were just over three when we brought them home. Tara and I took a while to get used to our new family size. Overnight we had gone from two to four. They were compliant at the beginning. They would finish their milk and eat their vegetables and climb into bed when asked. This did not last long. Soon they were testing us for cracks. The first time Runi refused to drink her milk, I didn’t know how to react. She noticed my hesitation and correctly took it as a sign of weakness. I imagine she woke up bored that morning and thought to herself, “what will this guy do if I just don’t drink my milk?”

For the first few weeks in their new home, they didn’t eat with us at the table. They preferred sitting across from each other on the drawing room carpet with their thalis resting on the tiny breakfast table, legs stretched out on the floor. They wanted some privacy at mealtime, I suspect. One day at lunch, right after being served Juni got up from the carpet and walked over to the dining table, thali in hand. I was just sitting there in my spot, pouring large spoons of dal onto my rice. She stared at me, irritated. I was confused.

“Kya hua, Juni?”

“Hatto! Ye meri jagah hai.”

Did I mention that I was sitting in my spot? My spot of six years. My perfect spot with the wall behind me, and the balcony from which I could see the trees to my left, the cutlery drawer a long but not impossible stretch away.

“Juni, ye to meri jagah…” – I began to explain, but she had a point. If they were going to move to the table, it was only fair that we did a fresh reshuffle. I was relocated. The balcony behind my back, a depressing wall to my right, the drawer well out of reach (for both of us).

We would take them to their paediatrician for regular appointments to keep track of their growth. She was happy with how they were doing. Thanks to good nutrition, in very little time they had grown taller and heavier. But there were two instructions: daily Vitamin D supplements and protein intake, three times a week. Over the years, Tara had added a lot more vegetables to our diet and I was eating meat only once a week on average. Thrice sounded pretty good.

They didn’t take to it at all. Runi, the more adventurous eater of the two, didn’t like bone pieces and found the boneless ones too chewy. She found it all either too bland or too jhaal. Juni, on the other hand, seemed to be a natural vegetarian. We tried different things, but nothing worked for her. We gave up on her eating meat for a while.

Then one night I made a batch of four spicy drumsticks to jazz up the otherwise boring dal-sabzi-rice we were all eating. Just for me. I didn’t think anyone else would be interested. Juni had almost finished her food but pointed to a fat leg in the centre.

“Papa ye wala”, she said, and grabbed it.

“Beta chicken hai aur jhaal bhi hai. You won’t like it.”

“Khaana hai.”

“Okay, try kar lo.”

She ate three that first night.

Every time that child sees a leg piece on the table now, she gets this crazed look in her eyes. I’m worried she’s developing an addiction. Turns out, things just weren’t meaty enough for her.

It’s a real joy to be able to spoil your children, to discover that they will always have dibs on anything they see you eating, to accept that they will destroy all the hard work that went into perfecting your Spotify algorithm. It’s a real joy to give up your favourite things for them, and yet, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge being toppled from my throne.

We can afford two leg pieces for every chicken dinner we cook now. And Juni and I are only ones who eat them. She takes one right away. The other should be mine, but I have to ask her each time - nicely - if she’s planning to leave the second one for me. This happened a couple of nights ago.

“Sunno, dusra wala khaogi tum?” I asked, pointing to the last leg.

She considered this as she put the first piece to her face and took a bite, masala all over her mouth.

“Haan.”

I looked at her with kind eyes, hoping she would reconsider. She stared back unmoved.

“Mira didi”, I called out to the kitchen, “kitchen mein aur leg piece hai?”

Tara looked like she wanted to hit me over the head with a stick. “How many legs do you think a chicken has?”