That Mango Chutney.
Kanika finished writing her latest blog post in a rather messed up, fast paced manner. In any case, if there’s a toddler tugging at your sleeve speaking languages from Planet Zorg, your blog posts start looking like paragraphs of code in some rabid C# programming language. “All done. Thanks to spell check!” she said to the toddler. “Gya blah, goonoo. Blee?” the baby promptly reverted.
An hour later when the little one was asleep, Kanika logged in to her avenues to keep a check on what’s happening in her friends’ lives. Facebook, yay! Therein, she came across a blog by some guy who wrote short stories. Although his latest story was about a little schoolboy, all that she registered was the reference of Potato bhaaji and chapati.
It would be a lie to say that she didn’t miss her country. She sat hundreds of kilometers (or miles, as they say here in the US of A) and as they would every day, her thoughts wandered to Mumbai. To Sion. Sometimes they would travel to the peanut-vendor outside the railway station from whom her dad would regularly get salted peanuts for her. Sometimes her thoughts lingered at the Guru Kripa fast food joint (they called it GK right?): Samosas & Kachoris. Lassi! True, Samosas are available here, but whom are we kidding? They’re an apology! They lack finesse! And that taste. She hadn’t forgotten that taste. And it wasn’t just about samosas. It was about these little things in life that she took for granted. The warm turmeric-milk spiked with Cardamom that mother made for her during a cold night. The chilly vinegar sauce, the only thing that Tanya, her younger sister was good at. She missed all that and more.
She started sobbing, but she wasn’t sad. It was a happy memory. All happy memories! To spell it out: on 2nd November, 2015, Kanika Nadkarni, who was sitting in her almost palatial home in San Francisco, who had several pleasures at her call, and means and power of fetching anything from Cheese Burger to Caviar, started missing good old Potato Bhaaji and Chapati with a super-yum Mango chutney that her mom made for her. True, she made a face every time her mom made that bhaaji, but now she sobbed for it.
The door bell rang! It shook her from these thoughts. It resonated through the big living room like a rude voice as it rang again, and again and Kanika quickly checked on the little one, who was still asleep.
She rushed to the door, opened it. Tanya, stood there smiling mischievously, with a ton of bags around her. Paarth, Kanika’s husband, was standing behind Tanya making a gesture that translated to something on the likes of “She planned the surprise, don’t blame me!”
But Kanika wasn’t registering.
“Early Diwali surprise!” Tanya screamed
Kanika wasn’t registering.
The world had faded for that moment. And her center of this world was Tanya!
They hugged and cried for a long, long time.
“You got that Mango Chutney, right?” Paarth’s patience finally failed him. “Where have you kept it?”
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Inspired by the following comment by Quiet Girl