Lowe's journal - That 'b' in burger

DELHI, India:

"What! A burger is not a burger without beef, the 'b' in burger is for beef! Do you understand what I'm saying to you?" My colleague gave me a nervous glance as I uttered those exact words to a confused-looking young lady inside a fast-food establishment within the main press centre.

Little did they both know that they were the latest targets of my daily mischief.

"I'm sorry, sir, we do not serve those here," she answered, with surprising calmness. If there is one thing I have learnt it's that people here are never calm about anything. If you try to get a bottle of repellent (liquids are, of course, banned from entering the stadia), you are treated as if you had a bomb strapped to your chest, but this young lady was rather tranquil.

"Lowe, you gwine (Trini accent) get us killed." poor Trini was already calling me a bad influence, but he was never one with a sense of humour anyway.

"Isn't a good burger something to die for? You either die for something or live for anything, and I want a beef burger!" Not the response he was looking for, and with that, he slowly turned away and left me at the counter.

Corn-based burger

Of course, I knew of the Hindu reverence of cows; was I being insensitive? Perhaps. In the end, I left peacefully with my corn-based burger, which was stuffed with some sort of vegetable, and the young miss insisted that she knew from the start that I was just messing with her. Trini is still not amused, by the way.

On that note, every day people have been asking me what I have been eating here. Just last night my good friend Kerlyn Brown asked me about curry and almost demanded that I go try some. Well, I am running out of excuses, so I'll try some and report accordingly. Just for the record, Kerlyn, I doubt I'll taste a curry better than my own secret recipe, not even in INDIA! But I'll try it nonetheless.

I have actually started to acclimatise my system to the different flavours. Just yesterday I tried a local snack, Dhokla is what it's called. From what I understand, it's some kind of rice batter, dabbed in herbs and spices; it wasn't the worst thing I have tasted.

I got a surprise visit from silver medal-winning shot put athlete Dorian Scott at the media tribunes inside the athletics stadium yesterday. Dorian, whose 95-year-old granddad passed away recently, was just giving me a hail.

Finally, I've heard that Lerone Clarke is the big man in the Games Village these days. His facebook page said: "I woke up this morning the 100m CHAMPION of the COMMONWEALTH, God is my stronghold through all my struggles."

Time to sign that deal, Lerone!

'Isn't a good burger something to die for? You either die for something or live for anything, and I want a beef burger!'

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