Diaspoman: When Punjab heat took me to redemption days

LAST WEEK when I was visiting in this neighbouring country, I happened to face the heat emanating from certain products all the way from Punjab. I had hooked up with an old friend who, I later discovered, had turned her life to the lord Jesus Christ. So, that implied that I couldn’t take her to the watering holes where I had been enjoying frothy beers all the way from the freezers. Instead, I took her to a posh Indian restaurant where we settled to enjoy some nice nosh. The waiters approached us to take our orders. As I was about to order for a Tusker beer, my mind reminded me that I was seated with a born again lady. So, I immediately switched to a cold bottle of Fanta. She too ordered for a cold soda. Then it was time to order for food. She was the expert in this area. She then released a chain of complicated names of Indian food. I was not worried as I happened to be loaded with real cash. So, eventually, the food was placed on our table. It was steamy rice and fish plus many other different tribes of food. I was feeling hungry and hence ready to attack the goodies on my plate. As I lifted the folk to eat I realized that my date had raised her hands towards heaven. She shrilled out a long prayer as she invited our lord to bless our nosh. Her prayer lasted approximately 7 minutes. Thereafter we started to attack the food. But then it was time for me to face the heat. In a bid to show my date that I was a ‘who is who’, I picked the red bottle of tomato sauce. However, I never realized that the red bottle was full of chili sauce all the way from Punjab. So, I proceeded to spray it all over my rice. Then I took a real mouthful. Ouch! My whole mouth turned into a real oven. Immediately, tears started flowing down my face. My date got concerned; “Brethren, what has happened to you?” I could not respond. It was too hot. After several minutes, I got composed and managed to let out these words; “Brethren, whenever I remember how our lord suffered on the cross, I break down and cry…”