I first got to know about it as soon as I walked into my friend’s place. There was this lingering smell of chicken marinated in sun-warmed masala and mustard oil. With that one sniff, I knew that I just had to taste it. But fate had some other plans.

You know how people (no matter how close they are to each other) don’t share certain things like toothbrushes, clothes and spouses; well this was one of them. My friend refused to share anything about this chicken pickle with me, except for one thing: I could get my own chicken pickle whenever I went up to Shimla. Suddenly I had an excellent excuse to be away for the weekend.

Along with two friends, we headed up the road in a friend’s Scorpio. Even after the initial excitement was killed off by bumpy roads, unruly truck drivers and a million and one other cars heading in the same direction as us, my enthusiasm for this Shimla specialty never waned. All that mattered to me was getting my hands on this elusive pickle.

As we got closer to Shimla, that is when I saw the clusters of shops with signs that I had been looking out for – mushroom pickle, garlic pickle, mutton pickle, chana pickle and – yes- chicken pickle. We picked ‘Shakti Pickles’ since that was the closest one to us. By this time my tongue had become thick with anticipation and saliva.

And as soon I put a piece of pickled chicken in my mouth I felt as though all the nerves in my body had collected on my tongue. And in a split second, the climax ended, but that was all I needed. It was just as I imagined it to be – juicy, lots of masala, not too salty, oily and local. It tasted just liked it smelled and I loved it. It was prefect. I tried the other pickles but I already knew which one I would be taking home with me (and that too one kg of it).

(As soon as I reached home I send my friend this sms: Guess who went to Shimla, got a kg of chicken pickle and won’t share it with you. :-P Haha!)