Biography 212: Taking lunch in the office.

  I don't take help from others as long as I can. When I started working, I couldn't make time to prepare my lunch—I never did before. I didn't ask my mom (I was living with my parents) to do so. I decided to eat outside. I like outdoor food. But now I know very well that no matter which country you live in, try to eat homemade food as much as possible.

So, I started enjoying my discoveries. Each day, I went to a new restaurant, food store, or convenience store and tried something new. Those were not healthy foods, but I had sound health to absorb them all.

Some of my colleagues used to bring food from home. At lunchtime, they used to sit together and take their lunch. I started buying from outside and then joined them. But some of them didn't like this unhealthy procedure. They insisted that I should bring food from home. But I didn't want to put effort into it and not put extra work on my mother.

One day, one of my colleagues, Jahangir Alam, became very angry with me. On that day, I ordered a bun stuffed with meat. It was pretty oily, and I wanted to discover how it tasted. But Jahangir shouted at me. What are you doing? Do you want to kill yourself? I won't let you eat these. He didn't let me eat! I was kind of scared of his anger.

Now, please don't take it wrong. He had his girlfriend in those days, and he is happily married to her now, has kids, and lives in the UK. In those days, he used to share his love stories with us, such as how it started, what happened in Nandan amusement park, a story about ordering food, some problems that he faced during marriage, his sister taking care of him like his mother, etc. He came a little late on my birthday with a bunch of yellow roses. He said he wanted to give me yellow flowers as a sign of friendship. But he couldn't find it in the flower store. Finally, he had to run after a man selling flowers and got all for me. He used to say this whenever he saw me, "Shahana aar korona banana. (it's in Bangla)" I still don't know what bahana (Excuse) I made ever.

We, all colleagues, became friends (at least, I thought so) and always try to stay connected. We are in a FB group; previously, we were in a Yahoo group.

Because of him, that night, I went to my mother's. I was expecting my mom to say no because she was busy and wouldn't be able to prepare my lunch in the morning. So, I would be able to tell them, no, I can't, let me eat from outside. But my mom agreed within a second. She said I prepare lunch for your father every morning; I can prepare one more lunch box for you, too. It's easy.

Trust me, I didn't like that. I wanted to try different foods from outside.

My mom started giving me lunch in a hot pot. It was a full meal: rice, curry, salad, etc. The Food was delicious. I stopped eating at restaurants. Maybe Jahangir just helped me not to ruin my health, which I did later.