This is the nostalgic post I've been excited about. If you can't resonate with it, my bad.
Dated: 30th Nov 2016
Sitting in a bar and waiting for a friend to show up. Ordered myself a beer and got a bowl of roasted peanuts as a complimentary snack to nibble. It's a smart trick by these highbrow restaurants to remind us of our nativities at small costs.
Roasted peanuts warmly reminded me of my childhood spent in one of the arid towns of Telangana called Karimnagar. It was a dream-come-true for my mother to stay in Karimnagar, for she had spent her pre-married life in a village. Having tied the knot to a man who hailed from an impoverished family, she had taken it upon her to save money which her husband earned by going from doctor to doctor, chemist to chemist to sell the products of the firm he worked for.
His modest income barred us (myself and the brother) from reaching out to delicious confectionery neatly stacked up in the glorious displays of bakeries. Instead my mother tried making snacks whose recipes she obtained from weeklies. Having been a woman of routine & new things discomfited her. And so the culinary experiments mostly ended up in awry ways. Then she retorted to makeshift snacks that her available ingredients allowed her to. One of them was roasted peanuts. Served with a pinch of jaggery to neutralize the excessive intake of the former.
Having eaten cup noodles for breakfast & a pizza for lunch, the sight and taste of roasted peanuts gave me taste buds a nostalgic delight.
We as a family have made progress, monumental progress for where my parents have started. And in that process we have acquired a certain fashion of living. A fashion that flushed roasted peanuts and many more down the toilet.
Dated: 30th Nov 2016
Sitting in a bar and waiting for a friend to show up. Ordered myself a beer and got a bowl of roasted peanuts as a complimentary snack to nibble. It's a smart trick by these highbrow restaurants to remind us of our nativities at small costs.
Roasted peanuts warmly reminded me of my childhood spent in one of the arid towns of Telangana called Karimnagar. It was a dream-come-true for my mother to stay in Karimnagar, for she had spent her pre-married life in a village. Having tied the knot to a man who hailed from an impoverished family, she had taken it upon her to save money which her husband earned by going from doctor to doctor, chemist to chemist to sell the products of the firm he worked for.
His modest income barred us (myself and the brother) from reaching out to delicious confectionery neatly stacked up in the glorious displays of bakeries. Instead my mother tried making snacks whose recipes she obtained from weeklies. Having been a woman of routine & new things discomfited her. And so the culinary experiments mostly ended up in awry ways. Then she retorted to makeshift snacks that her available ingredients allowed her to. One of them was roasted peanuts. Served with a pinch of jaggery to neutralize the excessive intake of the former.
Having eaten cup noodles for breakfast & a pizza for lunch, the sight and taste of roasted peanuts gave me taste buds a nostalgic delight.
We as a family have made progress, monumental progress for where my parents have started. And in that process we have acquired a certain fashion of living. A fashion that flushed roasted peanuts and many more down the toilet.
Concisely traversed the entire journey while reminding that we don't go too far as the crow flies. Good job.
ReplyDeleteYour comment reminds me of the Passenger :)
DeleteEngaging read. “A fashion that flushed roasted peanuts and many more down the toilet.“ questioned my beliefs.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful to the point description of small small daily things that make us bask in the cozy memories of the past.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it cannot get shorter and sweeter than this. We see so many things in a day that rock us back and forth in our memory lanes. The last line did exactly that. Now I have so much to say that my comment can get longer than the write-up itself. Good job!
ReplyDeleteSuccinctly written!!
ReplyDeleteStrange little desires from childhood to a hard earned fashion yet missing out the yesteryears (emotional)routine.
''having been a women of routine & new things discomforted her''
ReplyDeleteThis line deserves to be in a novel
Nostalgia punch!