𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐈𝐧 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐊𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐧

Our kitchens no longer feed us — they dose us. Every shelf stacked with brands, every packet called tradition, every sweet named love. Addiction wears the mask of normal. It is time to see the danger for what it is, to understand this concept deeply, and beware of this normalised trap.

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𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Every Indian home begins its day in the kitchen. The steel dabba opens, sugar slides into chai, biscuits line up on a plate, oil heats up for breakfast. From the outside, it looks like routine — the warmth of family, the comfort of tradition.

But beneath this warmth lies a different story. Our kitchens, once temples of nourishment, have quietly become miniature drug dens. Not with illegal powders or shady dealers, but with substances so ordinary we call them food — sugar, tea, coffee, refined flour, fried oils, packaged snacks.

They don’t just fill our stomachs. They 𝐡𝐢𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤 our brains. They create rituals, cravings, withdrawals. They set the timetable of the household: morning chai, evening snack, post-dinner sweet.

This exposé is not about the capsules in a pharmacy. It is about the legal, socially blessed addictions that sit in our kitchen jars. Addictions we mistake for love, culture, and bonding. Addictions we pass down from grandparents to children without ever calling them what they really are — drugs.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠-𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬

Here is the unvarnished list of everyday items that run our kitchens like chemical schedules:

1. Sugar & jaggery → Found in chai, halwa, biscuits, mithai. Works like cocaine on the brain, creating dopamine highs and crashes.

2. Caffeine → Tea, coffee, cola. Morning to night dependence, disguised as ritual.

3. Maida (refined flour) → Bread, biscuits, cakes, noodles. Soft, fluffy, addictive carb-high.

4. Refined oils → Frying mediums for namkeen, pakoras, chips. Addictive crispness, toxic to body.

5. Salt → Overloaded in pickles, snacks, processed foods. Makes you crave more while damaging blood pressure.

6. Packaged snacks → Chips, mixtures, bhujia. Engineered at the “bliss point” of fat, sugar, salt.

7. Instant foods → Noodles, soups, ready-to-eat meals. MSG-driven stimulation.

8. Soft drinks & packaged juices → Sugar-caffeine-acid cocktails as addictive as alcohol.

9. Chocolate & cocoa → Sugar + caffeine + theobromine = triple stimulant.

10. Alcohol → Present in many kitchens, rationalised as “relaxation.”

11. Artificial masalas & flavour enhancers → Taste-makers, MSG. Create dependence, replace natural spices.

12. Ice creams & dairy desserts → Sugar + fat + cold = maximum brain seduction.

13. Dairy itself → Cheese, paneer, milk. Casomorphins act like mild opiates.

14. Smoky & fried foods → Pakoras, kebabs, chaats. Charred aromas and oils drive cravings.

15. Health supplements → Horlicks, Bournvita, protein shakes. Mostly sugar with marketing.

16. Pickles & condiments → High salt, oil, spice — addictive tang.

17. Street food rituals → Pani puri, pav bhaji, vada pav. Overloaded with maida, oil, spice — disguised as fun.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬

Addictions don’t just live in jars — they shape how the entire household runs.

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧

Their first fix is “sweetened milk powder” or biscuits. Then chocolates, colas, chips. What begins as a treat becomes a demand. Parents confuse addiction with affection.

𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧

Morning begins with chai — “I can’t function without it.” Evening is “snacks with family.” Addiction is hidden inside rituals of care, bonding, or me-time.

𝐌𝐞𝐧

Office stress ends with alcohol, fried snacks, late-night sweets. Addiction framed as relaxation, reward, or “deserved indulgence.”

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

Multiple cups of tea or coffee daily, sweets rationalised as “energy at old age.” Food becomes a surrogate companion for loneliness.

𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐬 & Celebrations

Every festival = laddoos, fried snacks, alcohol. Addiction legitimised as culture. Children grow up equating joy with sugar.

𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠

TV decides what enters the kitchen. Masala mixes, “low-fat” biscuits, fortified drinks. Families surrender to marketing disguised as health.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

Guests get sweets, kids get chocolates, friends get alcohol. Feeding addiction becomes the language of affection.

𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞

Junk is cheap, fruits and nuts are costly. The middle class chooses filling addiction over expensive nutrition. Industry exploits this perfectly.

𝐑𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬

Morning chai. Post-lunch paan. Evening snacks. Post-dinner sweets. Not food needs — but a drug timetable running inside every home.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡

Food nourishes silently.

Drug-foods demand attention, craving, and ritual.

Our kitchens hold both. But we elevate the drug-foods, worship them as culture, and pass them on as love — while ignoring the foods that truly sustain us.

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𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Tomorrow morning, when you stir sugar into chai or hand your child a biscuit, pause. Ask: is this nourishment, or is this dependency?

We inherited kitchens that healed — with tulsi, haldi, jeera, fresh vegetables, pulses. Kitchens that doubled as pharmacy, doctor, and grandmother. But today, they have been colonised by industries that thrive on your cravings. Instead of herbs, we store refined chemicals. Instead of balance, we consume stimulation.

The difference between food and drug is not biology but control:

Food leaves you free.

Drug-foods leave you chained.

So the real question is not: “What is the difference between food and drug?”

The real question is: “Will you continue to mistake addiction for nourishment, or will you reclaim your kitchen to feed life instead of craving?”

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𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐈𝐧 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐊𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐧

— a dialogue with Madhukar

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𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

The mist lies heavy over Yelmadagi. The stone courtyard of Madhukar’s off-grid homestead bites with cold. A crow caws from the neem tree, a goat pulls at a patch of grass. The family from Kalaburagi arrives bundled in shawls, the road dust still clinging to their shoes.

They settle on the ground, breath fogging in the chill, a folded print of “Drugs In Our Kitchen” lying between them like a verdict.

Proud Grandpa sits erect, shawl draped with authority, his jaw ready to defend laddoos, chai, jaggery as culture. His diabetes needles hide in his bag, his swollen belly under the folds of tradition.

Shy Grandma lowers herself slowly, knees stiff, joints tender. She avoids eyes, whispers truth only when it slips out. Her BP monitor back in Kalaburagi blinks red, but she calls it “nothing serious.”

Stressed Father leans forward, face grey with fatigue, the pressure of deadlines and meetings pressing on his shoulders. A strip of BP pills hides in his pocket, acidity burns in his chest.

Moody Mother adjusts her pallu nervously, restless between guilt and excuse. Her weight drags her spine, her stomach churns each evening, but she hides behind advertisements and convenience.

Curious Son carries a small notebook, eyes alert, ready to question what others avoid. His teacher scolds him for drowsiness after sugar, but here he is sharp as the morning air.

Restless Daughter fidgets constantly, legs twitching, rubbing her eyes. Sleepless nights and chocolates drum in her small veins. She seeks comfort but secretly aches for peace.

Host Madhukar sits opposite, back straight, steady as the stone beneath. No sermon, only questions. No medicine, only mirror.

The silence holds. The essay has dragged them here, but the conversation will strip them bare.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 — 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫

Madhukar: Let us begin with the sweetest guest in every kitchen. Who will speak for sugar?

Proud Grandpa: (with pride) I will. For sixty years I have welcomed mornings with jaggery, festivals with laddoos, guests with sweets. Sweet is not addiction — it is respect, it is tradition.

Madhukar: And yet your insulin needles grow sharper each month. Your thirst wakes you at night. Your belly is heavy, your legs restless. Did respect bring this?

Proud Grandpa: (snorts) Diabetes is destiny. Everyone my age has it.

Madhukar: When poison is common, we rename it destiny. But it is only shared habit, cloaked in culture.

Shy Grandma: (hesitant, whisper) When I eat sweets, my knees swell. Doctor told me to stop. I hid it. I thought silence would make it less true.

Madhukar: Sugar speaks through your joints, Amma. Silence is not cure.

Restless Daughter: (blurts) Sugar makes me run in bed at night. My legs don’t stop.

Moody Mother: (covering face) And I give it to keep them quiet. To buy silence. I call it love, but I know it is betrayal.

Madhukar: Sugar is not love. It is rented silence. The rent is high, and your children’s sleep pays it.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 — 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢 & 𝐂𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞

Madhukar: And who will defend chai?

Stressed Father: (firm) I will. Without chai, my head pounds. Four cups a day, sometimes more. It keeps me alive through meetings.

Madhukar: Alive, or merely drugged into wakefulness? Your body shakes when chai is late. That is not energy, that is dependency.

Proud Grandpa: Tea is our culture. Dependence cannot be culture.

Madhukar: Culture that punishes you with headache when absent is not culture. It is addiction dressed in respectability.

Shy Grandma: (softly) I drink with him. Two, sometimes three cups. When I stop, my body aches more.

Madhukar: Because caffeine masks pain, but inflames it later. Your knees know it.

Curious Son: Why do adults need chai to wake up? I wake up without it.

Madhukar: Because your blood is still young. Theirs has been trained by leaves boiled in habit.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑 — 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐝𝐚 & 𝐒𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬

Madhukar: Who speaks for maida and fried snacks?

Stressed Father: (tired laugh) I do. Pakoras after meetings, biscuits in between, chips with drinks. They make me human again.

Madhukar: And then acidity burns your chest, your belly grows, your liver darkens. Is that human, or hostage?

Stressed Father: (grudging) Doctor said fatty liver is starting. He smiled when I said I eat "occasionally."

Madhukar: "Occasional" is every evening. The packet keeps count even if you don’t.

Curious Son: After biscuits, I feel sleepy in school. Teacher scolds me. Why do biscuits make me weak instead of strong?

Madhukar: Because biscuits are sugar and maida in disguise. They spike you high, then drop you into exhaustion. Your teacher sees laziness. I see chemical collapse.

[Moody Mother lowers her eyes — she packed those very biscuits in his tiffin box this morning.]

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 — 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐢𝐥 & 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐭

Madhukar: And the oils, the salts?

Moody Mother: Every namkeen, every packet in my cupboard has too much. But when I cook light, the family says food tastes like hospital.

Proud Grandpa: Salt is life. Without it, nothing has flavour.

Madhukar: And yet your BP monitor blinks red. Your ankles swell. Salt gave you taste but stole your veins.

Shy Grandma: (hesitant) Doctor said no pickles. I hide them. Without them, food feels empty.

Madhukar: That emptiness is not hunger. It is withdrawal. The tongue misses its drug, not its food.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 — 𝐀𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐥

Madhukar: Who defends the bottle?

Stressed Father: (quiet) I do. Just one or two at night. Otherwise, I cannot relax.

Madhukar: You relax, but your liver doesn’t. That’s why you wake heavy, irritable. Your relief is their burden.

Moody Mother: (bitter) After he drinks, the house grows silent. Not peaceful — tense.

[Father looks down, ashamed. His silence is louder than his words.]

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔 — 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡

Madhukar: And the so-called health powders, fortified biscuits, flavoured drinks?

Moody Mother: (voice trembling) I give them daily. Ads say strong bones, sharp minds. But my son grows sluggish. My daughter grows restless. Their teeth blacken faster than mine ever did.

Curious Son: (angry) Why do they say it makes me strong if it makes me weak?

Restless Daughter: (blurts) Why do I toss all night if it is healthy?

Madhukar: Because health never needed advertising. Only poisons do.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 — 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐬 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞

Restless Daughter: (pleading) I don’t want chocolate at night. I just want to sleep.

Curious Son: And I want my birthday with rice and mango. No cake.

[The courtyard goes silent. The wind cuts sharper. Adults lower their eyes. Excuses crumble in the cold air.]

Proud Grandpa: (voice cracked) If the children can refuse, what excuse remains for me?

Shy Grandma: (whisper) None. Only fear.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 — 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

Stressed Father: (weak) Maybe tomorrow I’ll start. After this packet.

Madhukar: Tomorrow is the sweetest drug. It keeps you chained with hope. Begin with today. Write every biscuit, every sweet, every drink. Watch your kitchen become a prescription list.

Moody Mother: (sobbing) What if we fail?

Madhukar: Then fail consciously. Failure with awareness is lighter than denial with comfort.

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𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠

The mist thins. The courtyard stones stay cold, but the family sweats under shawls. Proud Grandpa’s pride bends, Shy Grandma’s whisper grows into admission. Stressed Father looks hollow, Moody Mother ashamed. The children glow strangely brighter, as if freed by their own refusal.

Madhukar lifts his old ledger, writes:

“Visitors — suffering: visible. Denial: cracked. Children: possibility.”

He closes it slowly. The crow caws again. The day begins.

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𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐈𝐧 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐊𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐧

— 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐧

the day begins.

the tap leaks.

the floor is cold.

someone lights the stove.

water boils.

it is always the same.

cups line up.

powder drops.

sugar falls in.

it looks harmless.

it isn’t.

the house doesn’t wake without it.

that’s the truth.

chai is not tradition.

it is dependency.

nobody says it.

everybody knows it.

the jars gleam.

steel against steel.

rice. dal. wheat.

and next to them—

packets of powder.

packets of biscuits.

packets of lies.

children know the brands

before they know alphabets.

they sing jingles louder than poems.

their tongues wait for chocolate.

their fingers dig into chips.

their eyes glow with cola.

their teeth rot early.

dentists are richer.

grandparents chew sweets.

they call it love.

they call it blessing.

they don’t call it diabetes.

the syringe is hidden in the bathroom.

the swollen ankles are hidden in socks.

pride hides the rest.

the father works.

office. traffic. meetings.

he comes home broken.

pakoras fry.

beer opens.

the acid burns.

the blood pressure climbs.

he calls it relief.

it isn’t.

the mother runs the kitchen.

between guilt and convenience.

oats one week.

instant noodles the next.

powder drinks for health.

biscuits for peace.

chips for silence.

her stomach burns.

her back aches.

she laughs on the outside.

she dies a little inside.

the boy eats biscuits before school.

he dozes in class.

the teacher shouts.

nobody blames the biscuits.

he does. quietly.

but nobody listens.

the girl can’t sleep.

chocolate drums in her veins.

she twists in the blanket.

her legs kick.

her eyes stay open.

parents think she is naughty.

she isn’t.

the kitchen feeds the body.

the kitchen feeds the disease.

the kitchen is a dealer.

but the dealer is polite.

it smiles from tins.

it smiles from packets.

it smiles from ads.

no police will ever raid it.

sugar is not food.

sugar is silence.

it shuts children up.

it shuts elders up.

it shuts truth up.

chai is not comfort.

chai is a leash.

miss it once,

your head cracks open.

oil is not flavour.

oil is a thief.

it steals your heart slowly.

you clap while it kills you.

salt is not life.

salt is a chain.

you eat more.

you drink more.

you swell more.

biscuits are not snacks.

biscuits are debt.

the boy sleeps.

the mother regrets.

the father denies.

the jar empties.

another is bought.

pickles.

namkeen.

instant noodles.

soft drinks.

energy bars.

ice creams.

packaged juices.

all in the same kitchen.

all waiting.

all winning.

nobody calls it addiction.

everyone calls it normal.

normal is the new disease.

the elders have tablets.

the middle has tension.

the children have restlessness.

the kitchen has drugs.

the house has denial.

it is not one house.

it is every house.

Kalaburagi.

Delhi.

Mumbai.

villages.

towns.

apartments.

slums.

bungalows.

every kitchen.

same jars.

same packets.

same lies.

nobody whispers prayers anymore.

they whisper brands.

they worship wrappers.

they offer sweets instead of words.

they drink stimulants instead of silence.

the kitchen is not innocent.

it never was.

but now it is shameless.

it has turned from food to drugs.

from healing to dealing.

from nurture to poison.

look at the shelves.

look at the fridge.

look at the tins.

they are not yours.

they own you.

they have colonised your home.

they have colonised your blood.

they have colonised your children.

this poem is not a warning.

it is not advice.

it is a mirror.

every home with a kitchen

can see itself in these lines.

the addicts don’t live outside.

they live inside.

they live in us.

they live in you.

they live in me.

the kitchen has become the dealer.

the dealer has become the kitchen.

and the house—

the house has become a patient

that calls itself healthy.

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