LITTLE VIGNETTES FROM MY CHILDHOOD

When my sister Suman was young she would not eat a meal without tomato ketchup. Whenever we used to go to a restaurant my mother would quietly look around to locate where the bottles were kept so that she could just get up and fetch it herself rather than have to ask for one. My father would get extremely irritated by both of them but nothing helped. Now this love for tomatoes was only in the form of ketchup….she absolutely hated fresh tomatoes and refused to eat anything that had even been in close contact with this offensive item! One year we had gone to Stockholm for a holiday and Scandinavian countries are all renowned for their lovely smorgasbords and fresh produce. We went to a restaurant that served 100 different types of sandwiches and out of all of these the one Suman chose had some tomato in it. Now she pushed her plate away and absolutely refused to even touch it. My father also decided to dig in his heels and said there was no way she was going to waste the food so she would have to eat it. Now we had like a Texan standoff situation here and my poor mother was quietly trying to remove as much of the tomato as possible. Suman had tears running down her face and somehow managed to finish half the sandwich at which point my father also relented and let her leave the rest! War was finally averted. On that note Suman still doesn’t eat fresh tomatoes but she has gone the complete opposite on ketchup…..she can’t stand it and it’s a struggle for her to even pass the bottle to anyone. She obviously ate her full quota when she was young!!!

Daddy used to love anything hot to drink be it hot soup or a cup of steaming hot tea. If I ever wanted anything from him the best way to his heart was to make him a cup of tea and massage his head for him. There was many a Saturday morning when I wanted money to go shopping and after breakfast I would make this bonus cup of tea and stand and massage the little hair he had on his head. After enjoying it for a while he would ask me how much I wanted and the negotiations would begin. He was lucky because I never wanted much but we always had to go through the rigmaroles of bargaining. 

In Manchester we all used to eat dinner early….in fact pretty much as soon as Daddy came home from the office so this would be at about 6-6.30pm. We would mostly have Indian so Mummy would have everything ready and would make hot chapatis for us when we sat down at the table. She never made the rotis in advance as she wanted us to have nice garam rotis when we ate. It was so funny because she would always check to see whose roti she was making and the thickness would be made accordingly. I always only had one roti so mine would suddenly be thicker than everyone else’s…I never cottoned onto this fact till much later! Daddy used to love bread and after 2 rotis he would ask for a piece of bread and this used to annoy my mother immensely as here she was making fresh rotis and he dared to ask for bread. She would then vow never to make rotis for anyone and we could all just eat bread….but of course this never happened!!!

Another pet peeve of my mother’s was when we used to go out to a restaurant and Daddy would have strawberries for dessert. Now the poor man was diabetic so he could not have cake or any other dessert and this was the next best thing. My mother would immediately start muttering under her breath about how expensive these strawberries were in a restaurant and she would then proceed to serve strawberries to my dad for breakfast lunch and dinner for the next week. 

Mummy was slightly hard of hearing and despite taking her to the doctors nothing could help. Now my father referred to her condition as ‘selective hearing’.  We would be sitting in the kitchen after dinner and Mummy would be washing the dishes and I would be wiping the counters and stove top. Daddy would then proceed to test her. He would ask her for a cup of tea which of course she never heard and then he would ask her if she wanted to go shopping the next day and yes…somehow she always heard that and she would immediately turn round and respond. Point proven and Daddy would sit with a big smile on his face!

When Mummy first went to Manchester she spoke no English at all but over the years she learnt enough to get along and it was amazing how she managed to communicate with some of the workmen who came to the house and get her work done. This would be through a mixture of Hindi, English, charades and big smiles. They all loved her and used to call her Little (because of her size) Mama (because she became everyone’s mother). My father used to have some business associates in Portugal and they used to send a crate of very expensive Port Wine every year. Now neither of my parents drank and we were all too young so other than one couple friend who would occasionally have a glass these bottles would all be stacked in the store room under the stairs. Whenever my mother wanted the gardener to do some extra work sweeping the leaves or cleaning the gutters she would emerge from the storeroom waving a bottle of port and bribe him to do her work for her. The same with the telephone man….when touch phones came out rather than the rotary phones and she would want some extra phones to bring to India so she would try the same trick. And it always worked. She wasn’t bothered that she was handing out this vintage port as though it was halloween candy, as far as she was concerned she was getting her work done! Whenever anyone came to the house to work be it the gardener, the window cleaner, the handyman, the electrician and of course our daily help they would be busy doing their work and mummy would be busy feeding them with cups of hot tea and sandwiches. Our next door neighbours were an English couple and they loved Indian food and they would happily take our left overs from any dinner parties we had. Their favourite was kheer and Mummy would make that especially for them. Another neighbour we once had was an elderly English lady who was fond of only a few Indian things and I remember Aunty Riley had come for tea and Mummy had made some mixed pakoras for her which she always enjoyed. Mummy used to make the besan pakoras with slices of potato, onion, aubergine and whole green chillies. Without realising it Aunty took a big bite of the mirchi pakora and she literally went red in the face with tears streaming down her face and it took copious amounts of sugar and cold milk to soothe her taste buds! In future she always broke the pakora in two before taking a bite…. Once bitten twice shy!!

We had a small but very close Indian community in Manchester and everyone was always willing to help each other in times of need. When my grandfather passed away very suddenly my parents had to rush to Bombay and me and my brother were left behind in the care of a very close family friend Uncle Marfani and Aunty Beryl. In fact they moved into our house to look after us. We were no trouble but they always struggled getting me to go to sleep until they cottoned on to one good idea. I always fell asleep in the car so after feeding me my dinner, bathing me and putting me in my pyjamas Uncle would buckle me up in the car and literally just take me for a five minute drive round the block and I would be flat out. Work done!!! He would then carry me to bed and tuck me in. He never told my parents this trick and they always struggled when they got back!!! This habit of falling asleep in the car stayed with me for ages and after marriage Vinay would get very irritated when we used to go sightseeing in the car as I would invariably just fall asleep. Nowadays I struggle to sleep wherever I am… such is life!