Eating Christmas: Mimo Mishra talks about unique food traditions he's learned

Growing up at a boarding school in India, Mimo Mishra learned some unique food traditions.

He shared an essay about it for the Eating Christmas series.

MIMO MISHRA: My childhood was spent in an all-boys boarding school in India.

My parents sent my brother and I off there to learn more about our culture, become proper gentlemen and serious men.

Joke's on them.

The school has a rich history. It's about 125 years old, nestled inside the ancient Waller Fort, which dates back to the eighth century, towers 1.5 meters above the city grounds, closed off from the rest of the world.

Once you were inside the gates, no one had any access to family or outsiders. It was just boys raising each other like a pack of wolves. But there were rules, like "Lord of the Flies," that did not have to make any sense, just to be obeyed.

And a lot of these rules were related to food. One major school policy was that you were not allowed to bring back any food inside school premises. The issue with this rule, however, was that the food was absolutely disgusting.

I don't even know how you can ruin Indian food. But these guys figured it out.

During our first week, we were having oatmeal porridge as breakfast in the dining hall with the instructions of finishing everything. My friend barfs it out. And to let the rest of us know how serious the rules were and to set an example, our head teacher made him eat his puke.

To be fair, it looked and smelled exactly the same.

During any major holiday, family was allowed to visit and stay. This was the only opportunity to get real food. During one of these breaks, my grandparents — the only relatives I had in India — bothered to visit. They lived modest lives and left us a box of homemade sweet desserts called ladoos. Another one of our Communist rules was that everyone had to share their outside food with their batchmates. So it was my turn to share the ladoo.

I recall hearing a long "ew" from this chunky kid commenting it was disgusting, and he wouldn't eat it. He was a rich kid. He was also the only kid who managed to gain weight eating our disgusting school food. He could eat anything in this food desert, but he refused to eat my grandmother's ladoo.

And it was through this food that I realized, "Ha, I must be poor."

Fast forward two years. One of the biggest misadventures you could have in school was related to food. It's when the seniors assigned you on a mission to sneak out of the fort and return with a feast. It was a massive operation with slim chances of success.

You got a crew together. Usually two to four students, stake out the patrolling schedules for the teachers and security guards, sneak through shrubs for about 3 miles with an excuse if you were caught.

If you made it to the border of the fort, then there were the issues of logistics on how to scale down into the city. There were history,= legends of freedom fighters who use monitor lizards and ropes to scale the walls. We bribed delivery truck drivers instead, while praying that they didn't grope you on the way down.

Once you pick up the food, you repeat that process and not try not getting apprehended with this new haul. If you did get caught, as you can imagine by now, you're on your own. It was you and you alone who felt like eating 10 plates of butter chicken and 40 tandoori nans by yourself.

You take your a-- whooping like a man from the teachers, and then get a second beating from the hungry seniors for getting caught like an idiot. But when you succeeded, glory was yours. You'd curry favor — pun intended — with the seniors, who would share a few leftover morsels for a job well done.

And it was during holiday season, the odds are in your favor. The fort is sparsely populated with the staff out on break, as well.

It was during Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights — which happens during winter and is Christmas-adjacent — we pulled it off and got a real meal. But smuggling in the food was just the first half of the job. As juniors, we also had to keep a guard out for teachers while the seniors ate, spraying copious amounts of deodorant to drown the smell of masala. And then finally scrub everybody's dirty dishes to remove any evidence that a succulent meal had ever occurred.

It just so happened that night, we were signed cleaning duty. When I entered the bathroom, I found my rich friend had already started. He was hunched over the dishes, but he wasn't cleaning it with water. He had the plate parallel towards his face, licking it clean like a dog. As we made eye contact, he silently offered me the plate speaking loudly with his eyes. "You want in on this action?" he asked.

And even though as a young boy who was terribly poor and hungry, it was through this food that I realized the true meaning of the words self-respect and dignity

And that's the story of why I'll remain skinny.