““Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.””
““Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.””
On my mom's recent trip to Japan, where my maternal family resides, I asked her to have my Nani share any recipe that she had fond memories of making. It could be a recipe she made often for the family, or perhaps something more particular for my Nanaji. Over WhatsApp, I was then sent a scant list of ingredients and questionable directions for gulab jamun. The information was something out of the Technical Challenge contest of The Great British Bake Off consisting of approximate measurements and barely there cooking times. One glance and I knew that I needed to figure this one out on my own through trial and error. But first, this seemed like the opportunity to press for more information about my Nanaji, someone with whom I had little time to know on my own.
I let the conversation continue...
(Grammar Fanatics: The conversation was done over WhatsApp so it very much reads like a text messaging exchange, mostly unaltered to keep the tone and edited only to provide context)
fm: Can you ask Nani about a fond memory she has of Nanaji? A moment together, an experience together. Did she make gulab jamun for him?
mom: She used to make gulab jamun for him a lot. He loved black dal and gobi aloo roti. On his last day he ate gobi aloo roti. He asked for it and Nani ran to the store called Sami and they had only half a head of cauliflower.
fm: I am holding back tears.
Did he eat the gulab jamun with anything in particular like a glass of milk or ice cream. Or did her need it served at a certain temperature?
mom: He did not like ice cream. He liked it hot and really sweet.
fm: Who doesn’t like ice cream???
mom: Nanaji.
fm: I know! I mean: how is that possible? Ice cream is the best thing ever invented!! Can you ask Nani one more thing? Can you ask her to describe Nanaji. Tell me everything she says.
mom: She says he was handsome. He as like a He-Man. Intelligent. He came to Japan and did different jobs and was aggressive. First he opened a spare parts shop, then a cloth business [selling Japanese fabrics] exporting to England. And then his car business. He was not scared of anybody or anything. He was short tempered.
fm: I feel so emotional reading this about Nanaji.
mom: He killed 200 chickens with his hands. He felt guilty and said he was being punished for his kidney failure and he had a shunt in his left hand [because of dialysis].
fm: what do you mean he killed 200 chickens? As in for real he killed 200 chickens? Why? When?
mom: With his bare hands for a party his friends threw for him before he left Bombay for Japan. He was showing off his strength.
fm: are you joking?! That is crazy! I didn’t know any of this.
mom: I didn’t either. Okay Nani is going to sleep now.
fm: is Nani getting emotional at all? I am. Tell her I love her so much.
mom: I will. I asked her, “ Did you love him” and her response was:
“Why not.”
Why not.
It was not a question but two simple words I can imagine leaving my grandmother’s lips, her voice shrill in annoyance for having to answer such a futile question. Why wouldn’t she love the man with whom she spent most of her life? In her generation, people neither questioned theories of love through years of independent, self-exploration nor were they bogged down by the myriad shades of grey that concerns existentialism. Perhaps today this can be seen as irritating contentment, lacking of self-awareness or simply boring. But perhaps for that generation, they find our mass confusion over identity, responsibility and life goals to be laughable and wasteful.
Judgments aside, the bottom line is that through thick and thin, love was the ultimate manifestation of a decades long partnership of contentment and confusion.
Because why not?
My nani’s recipe for gulab jamun for all the he-mans out there is a click away. Why not?
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