I kept a hundred-rupee note in my hand and shook hands with him. Perplexed,
he examined the currency.
‘We are giving you out of happiness,’ my uncle said.
‘I can make upma fast,’ the chef said.
‘What is upma?’ my uncle said.
‘Salty halwa. No, not upma. Can you make dosas?’ I said.
‘For dosa one by one making no staff now. Then lunch also delayed,’ the chef
said mournfully.
We settled on idlis. There would be no sambhar. However, the chef had drum
full of coconut chutney, enough to pave roads with.
My family sat in the dining hall as servers placed banana leaves in front of
them.
‘We have to eat leaves?’ Shipra masi said, ‘ What are we? Cows?’
‘It’s the plate,’ I said, ‘and there is no cutlery.’
‘They have hardly any expense in weddings, how lucky,’ Kamla aunty said.
Forty of us consumed at least two hundred idlis.
Ananya’s father came when we had finished. ‘There wasn’t breakfast? I am
sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, ‘We came late.’
‘Hello, Kavita-ji,’ Ananya’s father said with folded hands, as per Ananya’s
instructions. He took the bucket of idli from the servers and served one to my
mother.
‘Hello,’ my mother responded, a hint of pride in her voice as her sibilings saw
her being served by the girl’s father. This is what grown-ups live for anyway,
considering they have so little fun otherwise.
‘How’s Krish’s father feeling now?’ Ananya’s father said next.
nora
(Nora)
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