Friday, July 18, 2008

Memories of food – Modak

It was the first time I was away from home on my birthday. I had been working the whole day and for some reason that I cannot now remember, I had not spoken to my parents since morning. As I made my way home that evening, I stopped by at a phone booth and called them. I wished my father a happy birthday and he greeted me back – we share a birthday. We chitchatted for few more minutes and then I hung up. I had never felt worse as I made my way up the third floor to the small flat which I shared with two other girls. One of the few people I knew in the apartment block was a Marathi family who lived on the ground floor. On my way home, sometimes I used to stop by and play with their little two-year old. Soon I was being invited for a cup of tea and poha. And I before I knew it, I was picking up fruit and veg for them when I did my shopping. Their door was always left open and the fruits gave me the perfect pretext to drop by their place.

On that particular birthday however, I didn't feel like socialising much and wanted to slip away as quietly as possible. But the elderly grandmother who saw me pass by, rushed to the door and enquired after me. I told her that it was my birthday and feigning fatigue, I made my way to the flat. No sooner had I shut the door behind me than there was a knock. The grandmother stood there holding an ever-silver tiffin box. It's Modak, she said offering it to me, you told me it was your birthday. It was the first bit of celebration I'd had all day. And I didn't need any other.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hooray, you're back at last!

Anonymous said...

Hi Ammani, started reading your posts recently and love all your short stories! Congrats on the new baby and glad you found time to write two more :-) Keep writing!

Ganesh said...

Ammani welcome back.

Unknown said...

Happy birthday to u and ur dad too :D

Anonymous said...

AR vandu sendacha?

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! Memories of modak hold memories of love for me too.

Anonymous said...

haaaaayaaay ... we are glad to see you are back! Our modhak for the day! :)

Jam said...

Happy birthday (belated, if that s the case)

This was a nice, short, wonderfully poignant and touching story about those small random gestures that make our otherwise mundane lives so interesting to live in.

Party on........Jam

Vinz said...

ammani..

used to read ur blogs earlier..
and in between lost the touch with blogs..

nice to see you active over here..
though, i didnt get the puch of ur earlier posts, this one faired good enough..!!

keep writing..

Nikhil Narayanan said...

It is really sad to be away from parents on b'days.
Been like that for nearly a decade.
This time I managed to be home. :)

-Nikhil

Anonymous said...

Great post ...
Emotional one. I loved it.

Anonymous said...

Ooohhh!!! Modak. modakam. kozhukattai. i actually had to look up modak on the web and find out what it was. :D it didnt strike me.