A Happening Sunday

Foreword: This post is dated Oct26th 2008. Thanks to my laziness, it is being posted so late! Sorry abt that.


A Happening Sunday:

I woke up late and lazily stretched myself and checked the time...10:00AM!!
It was a Sunday. I jolted out of my bed and started searching frantically for my little device. There I found it! Innocently lying under my pillow. I quickly checked and saw that there were 10 missed calls and a message... I knew they were from my family back in India.. they called me up to tell me the news.. and I was sleeping like a log! How could I do this?? I cursed myself!

I quickly opened up to read the message. I dint read it fully. I was looking for the word I wanted to know so desperately for soo long. There it is... “DAUGHTER”
There was a sudden disappointment L I wanted a boy! I slowly started to realize the sweetness of that. A lil’ girl in our home. The angel of joy! My sister delivered a baby girl! The first in our home.. I couldn’t contain myself. I felt soo happy...I wanted to see the baby. I called up and talked to everyone. Both, the mother and the baby are doing fine. Everyone had come to see the baby. I was one of the last ones to wish my sis. Everyone one wanted to describe the baby to me. I wanted to hear her crying atleast..
My mom put the phone next to her and we waited. The baby refused to cry! We tried and tried and finally she blurted out something..wat ever it was, it was sooo sweet!
Now I was soo happy and wanted to tell this to everyone.. So I called up a couple of my friends..shared the good news..

And the clock showed me its 11AM by then.. I was running late for our event today..the Indian meal cooking day. J

My American friends Margaret and Mel loved Indian food and so wanted to see and learn how Indian food is made. So we were to get-together in Margaret’s home to cook, learn and have fun. So I called her up immediately, told her the good news and the ‘late’ news. She offered to pick me up to save time. I had to take all the Indian spices and things and I haven’t even packed that.

I gathered whatever I could lay my hands on and ended up with huge baggage - fortunately she came to pick me up. We picked up a few things at the store and hurried towards her home where Mel was eagerly waiting of us.

This time, Ivy, her cat, let me hold her and played a lot with me though Cleo was her usual self -watchful. Mel had something for us. A desktop calendar made from one of his recent projects. Mel is an artist and a photographer. It was lovely. He explained about his subject, a beautiful home.

I was all set and he also wanted to surprise us with one of their family recipe – apple crisp.
So then we started our loooong process..cutting, cooking, chatting and learning.
We had so much fun.. I learned about the diff types of apples, his childhood, the family recipe, his recent Russia trip and Margaret’s stories.


They learned with interest and awe about the pressure cooker, the spices of India, our cooking ingredients etc. They were so surprised by the way we do the ‘tadka’ in our curries. I realized how different we all were but still had lots in common. So true!

It was 7Pm by the time we were ready with everything-tomato rice, raita, chicken curry, naan, daal, potato fry, sambar, rice and the yummy dessert. We sat down to eat. We toasted to our international friendship and the beauty of it. May that live long!
They toasted to my family - the new set of parents and grand parents. They liked what I cooked and enjoyed it very much (atleast they said so! :D). Margaret was in tears when she ate the chicken curry – it was too spicy for her!

Then Mel wanted to read us parts of his draft version book .This was a new experience. Rarely does it happen that an author would read out a draft version of his book to you! It was so nice of him.

The dessert was simply divine! I haven’t had such a good dessert in a long time.
We were all stuffed by 8PM. Margaret announced I couldn’t go home alone and she should drop me there. We wished each other good night and drove back.

This was a very good day for me.. a happy and happening day!