India is not a good place to live if you don’t like eating rice. It is utterly ubiquitous, the staple of every meal from rice and daal for lunch and dinner, to rice puddings and rice sweets for dessert. I regularly get bemused looks from colleagues when I confess that I’ve cooked myself pasta or potato as an alternative. The idea of going even a day without rice is anathema to most rural Indians, and my fondness for sandwiches is regarded as a bizarre British eccentricity.
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 