In March 2020, at the onset of the Covid pandemic, Manohar had been on an extended stay in India visiting his mother and three sisters. Upon hearing news that India was closing all of its airports, he cobbled together flights and remarkably made his way back to our home in the US. After two grueling years apart, immunized and boosted, we returned to India.
Family
This visit brought us to the home of Manohar’s next oldest sister, her husband, daughter, and Manohar’s mother. They live in a high-rise in Mumbai, one of the world’s most populous cities. Manohar’s two other sisters planned their visits to overlap as well. People shifted and shared beds and sleeping mats without a peep. One of the beautiful beliefs of this family is, that there is always room for your loved ones.
Food
Food is life and in India it is cherished. Not even a single grain of rice is left behind. Fresh food is prepared every single day, not just for flavor, but for its nutritional density. Wheat is bought as a whole grain, then dried and ground to ensure purity. Yogurt is made at home everyday for the same reason. Any food leftover from the morning will be expertly crafted into a new meal for the evening because tomorrow we will start fresh.
The dining room table is our daily gathering place. Every day, my sisters-in-law woke up hours before everyone else to begin cooking breakfast — and lunch — while it was still dark outside and cool-ish inside. Their morning ritual produces at least one or two curries, lentils, rice, a yogurt-based or another cooling relish, and flatbreads made from scratch — rolled out and cooked on a burner one-by-one.
We gathered around the breakfast table and leisurely drank coffee, played Wordle (love it!), and ate. Then, the people going to work packed up their freshly prepared lunches in stacked containers to fill their lunchbox, or tiffin as they call it. (Which reminds me of a charming 2013 Hindi film you might like to see on Netflix, The Lunchbox.)
Once breakfast was finished, it began to feel like a race against the clock as the sun would head higher. Clank! Clank! Someone was tackling the mountain of pots and pans from breakfast. Swish! Swish! The clothes were getting washed in order to hang them on the line. Ding-dong! The doorbell rang. It was the trash collector picking up garbage. Ding-dong! It was my brother-in-law’s driver asking for the car keys. Ding-dong! That day the press walla was collecting the ironing.
Having not strayed too far from the table, before we knew it, freshly washed steel plates would reappear in front of us signaling lunchtime. By early afternoon, having already been quite busy for several hours, full tummies and the hot sun induced a much-deserved afternoon nap.
By about 5 pm, it was back to the table for a cup of piping hot, lemongrass and ginger chai served with biscuits or bread. It astonished me how deliciously satisfying a steamy, creamy, spicy tea tasted during the hottest part of the day!
Everyone back at the table, someone would ask Alexa to play old Hindi movie songs. We might do arts and crafts or discuss plans for the weekend. A game of dice or cards often ensued.
As people returned from work, my sisters-in-law bounced between the dining room table and the kitchen. Again, shiny steel bowls of warm food began to magically appear on the table, and dinner was served around 8-9 pm. Afterward, we played more games and there was more singing — or occasionally a family movie night until bedtime.
Out and about
By now I’ve been to India more than a dozen times. I’ve dealt with bucket showers, traveler’s sickness, monsoon rains, a near mugging, frogs in my toilet, lizards on my walls, and monkeys in my hotel room. But, this was my first visit in the month of May, the peak of summer which means the hottest time of the year. May is the month when we read headlines from India, “Intense heat wave kills…” It’s so hot this year, birds are falling out of the sky.
Why, oh why, did I think it would be a good idea to go outside for a run?! The heat proved too much for me and I was down for the count for a few days. The doctor suggested the malaria pills I’d been taking could have also contributed to the nausea. (Side note, I hadn’t seen a single mosquito in over one week, so I opted to stop taking them at this point.) But where heat was concerned, I couldn’t imagine how Manohar ran two marathons here! In any case, Manohar had to run without me during the rest of our stay.
So, restaurant dining on weekends became a chance for me to venture out for a short while. We shared a lovely celebratory lunch at Status Restaurant for my sister- and brother-in-law’s 38th wedding anniversary. We also visited the famous Café Mysore — specializing in South Indian fare, they’ve served over 10 million customers since 1936.
At first, we were taking taxis, until our last taxi driver turned out to be more threatening than the heat. While bringing us home, in a drunken stupor, he belligerently recounted the recent parking ticket he had received and spelled out, in detail, the destruction he was prepared to carry out. It’s probably just as well he was speaking in Hindi and I was unaware of the meaning of his words until after we were safely home. Subsequently, our remaining outings were in an air-conditioned car graciously offered to us by my brother-in-law.
Our only goal during these three weeks was to devote time to family. If the last two years of the pandemic have taught us anything, it is not to take these opportunities for granted. While spending some one-on-one time with my mother-in-law, I was inspired to dedicate a blog post to her that you can read here. Manohar is already planning to return to India next month to spend even more time with his family.
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