There is a particular way to eat pickle. You reach for the earthen, porcelain or glass jar standing on the shelf, and open the airtight lid. First, let the oily, spicy aroma permeate your olfactory nerve-endings; dig in with a spoon and add the stuff to your daal-bhaat; and then ascend towards heaven. This is how it has been since time began in Southasia.
Cut to the seat 29D in cattle class, looking at the poor specimen of roti and mutter-paneer that the airline chef has deigned to make part of your destiny this afternoon on the Kathmandu-Delhi flight. All of it pretty bland, and the taste buds unanimously send the signal to the brain: "Pickle! We want Pickle! Help us tackle this loss!"
Brain gets the SOS. Instructs eye. Eye scours the tray for the pickle container, and finds the guy trying to hide behind the bowl of raita, staring up at you menacingly. Mixed Pickle, produced by Merry Food (Rasulabad, Allahabad-4), tries to sneak away. Grab it before it jumps off the tray.
Next comes the challenge of opening the Mixed Pickle container. Now, the opening of a small, sealed plastic-and-foil container is just about as far as you can get from the Southasian tradition – nay, the very culture – of ingesting pickle. And it doesn't help that this container is designed not to be opened, as if the Rasulabad pickle-wallah were afraid the secret selection of condiments would become public knowledge if some brave adventurer actually managed to break into the strongbox and get at the innards.