Her favourite? Beef lungs fried in chilli paste. Spicy, chewy, unapologetic. She tasted the curry. Warm. Earthy. And somehow… freeing.
They ate in silence for a while, but not the uncomfortable kind. He spoke now and then about politics, economics, social justice. How caste still lingered in the corridors of power. How climate change was affecting coastal farmers. How anger, if not grounded, becomes theatre. She nodded, responded, laughed occasionally. But the beef? Never mentioned again.
No explanation. No teaching moment. Just lunch. And maybe that was the teaching. He had eaten beef like it was dalh. Calm. Neutral. No tension. No theatre. She looked at her own plate, her own body. And quietly saw herself. .But pork? Ah. Pork.
Growing up as a Muslim, she had been told to avoid it. No questions asked. If the scriptures said no, then it was no. And so she obeyed. Quietly. Persistently. Habitually. Even after she walked away from Islam. Left the mosque. Unlearned the prayers. Still pork lived inside her like a red-flag warning.
The mention of it made her throat stiffen. Even mock pork soy-based, shaped like ribs felt like ritual in denial. “I’ve been pretending,” she thought. “Playing mind games with my body. Eating what looks like pork. Telling myself it’s okay because it isn’t really.”
She shook her head slowly. “To break it, I must face it.” Not secretly. Not unknowingly. Consciously. Fully. Openly. Just like her guru with the beef. She occasionally met up with members of her ex-Muslim circle a loose, shifting group of people bound by shared silence, shared wounds, and the strange freedom that followed leaving what once held them tight. At most meet-ups, pork and alcohol were always present.
Not just available highlighted. Glazed ribs, sizzling bacon, wine, beer, whisky. Even when other food was on the table, these took centre stage. She noticed it early on. The almost ritualistic way the group dove into the "forbidden." Not just eating it, but celebrating it. Posting about it.
Clinking glasses with exaggerated joy. And most times, when they offered her a glass or a bite, she’d politely decline. Not out of fear. Not out of piety. But… curiosity. What was this obsession with pork and alcohol? Why did freedom so often look like excess? She didn’t judge them. She understood it now. After years decades of avoidance, abstinence, and guilt… the first sip of wine could feel like a sermon. The first bite of bacon like a declaration.
“I own myself now.” But she also wondered is this healing, or just reaction? And where does freedom end and performance begin?
The meet-ups were casual someone’s house, a quiet bar, a corner café that wouldn’t ask questions. Most had long stopped speaking about God, but they still spoke the language of rebellion. And pork and alcohol had become part of that language. It wasn’t just about taste. It was theatre.
Now, she thought of the next meet-up. She could almost see it the wine flowing, the laughter too loud, the jokes a little too sharp. The moment someone sliced through crispy skin and offered her a piece of roasted pork belly.
And this time, she’d take it. No hesitation. No speech. She would place it on her plate, lift it to her mouth, and eat calmly, plainly. Not to prove she was free.
But because she no longer needed to prove anything at all.
