Pakistani cuisine is delicious and full of flavor but also very spicy. While most Pakistanis like it hot, there are some unfortunate desis who cannot tolerate spice in spite of being exposed to it their entire life. If you are one such desi, you know the struggle is real.
Here are 21 things that you can relate to if you’re a desi who can’t eat spicy food:
1. Everyone questions your Pakistani-ness.
“Are you even Pakistani?”, someone is bound to shout that when you politely refuse a generous serving of that the extra spicy Nihari.
‘Yes, Sajjad, I am Pakistani, sit your extra hyper ass down’, you mumble inwardly.
2. Anytime you announce that you can not eat spicy food, people do not hold back their judgment. If looks could kill, you’d be dead by now.
If you wanna judge me, at least pretend to do it behind my back.
3. You find yourself constantly defending your inability to process spicy food.
Sometimes arguments escalate quickly.
4. You don’t understand the biryani with and without aloo debate.
Aloo helps reduce the spice, aloo is love, aloo is life, aloo allows you to consume biryani in the first place.
5. You embarrassingly prefer khichri over biryani and loved ones remind you that you’re a complete dork – a title that you wear with pride.
6. The struggle is real picking the lesser evil at a dawat without offending anyone.
‘Kis cheez mein mirchain kam hon gin’.
7. Pretending that you’re not in pain when eating at someone else’s house is tough. You feel like a fire-breathing dragon at every party.
But courtesy dictates that you hide your pain and complement your host’s food.
8. Anytime you do eat spicy food (mostly due to peer pressure), later that night you’re screaming “ice-cream come out, come out ice-cream” hurdled over your toilet bowl in profuse sweats (sorry too graphic).
9. You constantly get the runs from eating spicy food that made no one else sick.
10. You always have spare antacids in your medicine cabinet, and nightstand and handbag and stashed away in the dashboard of your car because you never know when you’ll need them.
11. Doodh, lassi and dahin are your best friends.
Cause everything else causes so much burning. Is that a fire in my esophagus?
12. When you order out you have to constantly remind your server, “mirchain kam dal yeh ga please”.
Meanwhile, someone on your table will roll their eyes when you make said request.
13. Even after reiterating yourself an annoying amount of times, your food is still so spicy you’re convinced it’ll give you the runs (yet again, you just recovered).
14. You’re an outcast amongst your friends.
No one wants to order food with you and share your bland ubli hoi sabziyan. Lonely, I am so lonely, nobody loves me I’m all alone ???
15. If you’re a girl you need a ridiculous amount of primer when you go to dawats. All that mirch masala makes you sweat so much that your make up melts faster than a popsicle.
16. Spicy food makes you sweat so much, everyone brings it up.
‘I know Amna, trust me, I know that I look like a waterfall, stop pointing out my embarrassing sweat puddles.’
17. You low key cry when you eat spicy food and people are like bhai kaun mar gaya hai?
18. You want to die when you accidentally eat the finely sliced hari mirch hidden in your food.
19. From time to time, you try to increase your spice tolerance and inflict self-pain, immediately regretting said decision.
20. After eating spicy food you’re essentially flammable.
21. You have a massive sweet tooth because meetha is always safe.
Meethay mein kaun mirchain daalta hai? Keep that chill chocolate away from my face you monster!
Let us know in the comments below whether you love spicy food or your gastrointestinal tract goes into shock at the sight of something high on the Scoville scale. Happy eating.
