Eating Out

You can take Laloo Yadav out of Bihar but you can’t take Bihar out of Laloo. When I suggest lunch, he refuses to eat anywhere else but at the Bihar Niwas in Delhi. "I don’t eat at five-stars," he confides. "The food doesn’t suit me." Patting his stomach for that extra effect, he adds, "Pet phool ke balloon ho jayega." Then how did he survive jail fare? He did his own cooking while in prison. "Tell me something about the jail," I ask. It’s enough to make him stop eating and hold forth seriously: "You can’t tell someone about jail. You have to be there yourself." But he does tell me that while in prison, he had a dream. "Shankar Bhagwan came to me and said if I stopped eating meat, all my problems would be over." Ever since, both Laloo and Rabri have been strict vegetarians. Now it’s up to Shankar Bhagwan to keep his side of the bargain.

I concentrate on the spread before us. Laloo goes for a heavy meal as his next will only be late at night. Brunch for us is dahi chiwra (curd and flattened rice), a mixture of potatoes and stewed brinjal, rice and a unique dish comprising only onions. Laloo’s favourite ‘international food’ is Thai. Where did he eat Thai food? "At Lalit Bhai’s," he says. That being hotelier Lalit Suri.

I pick up my spoon and start eating. Only to realise something is wrong. "You’re eating with a spoon?" I’m asked incredulously. I quickly discard it. Something’s still wrong. "Why are you eating with your left hand?" I protest I even write with my left hand! We move on to parliamentary etiquette. What amused him was the fact that the PM left the Rajya Sabha just as he got up to speak during the Gujarat debate. With a gleeful smile, he says: "The PM saw my speech on television and said, ‘If I had been sitting in the House, then God knows what all Laloo would have said’." Apparently, Laloo feels his had been a restrained speech.

He had brought along a copy of Outlook he had quoted in Parliament and showed me how he’d marked out parts of Arundhati Roy’s essay. Laloo and Ms Roy? This sounds as quaint as pyaaz ki sabzi. I ask him if he reads a lot. "Hum padte-vadte kum hain," I am told. "But once I do, it goes straight into my computer." As he makes for a very unlikely Chandrababu Naidu, I ask him, "Do you use a computer?" Laloo smiles indulgently and points to his head: "This is my computer." There are some things technology cannot substitute. Laloo Yadav is one of them.