I saw a Garfield comic on my mochaholic didi Piali's website. It mentions the joys of bachelorhood and Ramen noodles. I think instantly something unlocked in my mind.
Summer of 1994. I just finished my first year in college, and was gainfully employed on campus, cleaning toilets and entering new journals at the library database. On a trip to Grand Union grocery store, I bought two 24 packs of Maruchan Ramen noodles for 10c (4 taka in those days) a pack. And for about 14 days, I had two packs for breakfast, two for lunch, and three for dinner. I went again, and continued this diet with slight variation -- ramen with ketchup, ramen with egg drop, ramen with soaked bread, ramen with sliced chicken sausage, etc. You get the idea.
Around August, I left Bard and went to my sister's place in California, and had real food for three weeks. That was the end of my bittersweet affair with Maruchan Ramen.
I never touched a single pack of Ramen again in the next six years of my stay there. I even found ways to avoid the aisle in stores, for fear that the memories would be too overwhelming.
But now that I can afford food, I look back at the summer of '94, and the ramen diet and the 25 dollars a week dorm accomodation looks like a fond memory of a place far far away. Because of 10-cent Ramen packs, I never went to bed hungry. And thanks to ever playful Joycelyn from Servicemaster and Chen-Ley Ong-Verkouille, my inspiring supervisors, I retained dignity in cleaning toilets, and expanded my horizon through various magazines and periodicals, in the process making an honest living. And I was no longer a stranger in a strange land.
Summer of '94 memories also include watching the Lion King, Forrest Gump, Speed at the Lyceum, and driving my dear friend Loredana to Northern Dutchess Hospital 12 miles away without a license on Sebastian Salazar's manual transmission car that I didn't know how to drive, but that's another entry into itself.
Who wouldda thunk that a "delicacy" from the land of the oppressed would help so many in the land of the free survive and prosper?
