So long, Thatha

The Thatha who lives across our apartment has passed away. I think it happened while we were not here but I noticed a small crowd in his modest balcony the other day. While he was alive, we had never noticed visitors..It was just Thatha and his wife. Thatha would sit out on the balcony reading the papers early at dawn and later on the evenings he would be there looking out into the open road and enjoying the breeze from the nearby sea. Ofcourse we don't claim to know him, my daughter and I , but we watched out for him with an abstract affection you feel sometimes for someone you see but don't know..It's a little like watching a movie and growing to like/emphathise with a character. Thatha would've been in his late eighties by the looks of it. He seemed a gentle, amiable soul watching the world passing by. My little girl had her own script for him everyday. "Look at poor Thatha, Paati has given him a restraining order today. She has locked that grill door to the balcony and he is prisoner, look, he 's behind the bars!!! " she would say. "Thatha is out early today and it's not even a working day!" I would have to remind her that for Thatha everyday was a holiday now. Whatever it was, we liked that comfort of Thatha across in the opposite apartment. He kept us company , albeit unknowingly on lazy summer evenings as we watched the stars rise in the skies. We miss him now, our Thatha. My daughter does not want to believe he is actually gone. 'Check the papers, I haven't seen any obits ' she tells me. I don't check, because he must have passed away before we got back.And I don't want to go through back issues for a fact I already know. "Maybe he has gone on a trip , to vist his children perhaps'' she says wistfully. But then what are all those people doing in his house and those homams that's going on?
A week has gone by now , the crowds have disappeared .Yesterday I saw the Paati come out onto the balcony in the morning. She sat there for a while in Thatha's usual place. She didn't read the newspaper ,instead stared vacantly down the road. I could feel a large lump rising in my throat. If Rudraa was awake she would have said to me" Mama, see Paati looking out for Thatha , he has gone out to buy the milk..".I haven't told her yet. Let her believe her Thatha has gone to visit his kids.Where ever you are Thatha, we miss you...god bless....

Fish fry? My bheja fries..

Those you who 'know' my past , will recall my distaste for fish and its ( for me) nauseating smell. Friends from college days even now recall how I 'd wait for them to finish their lunch and open the 'fish- moleculed' taps in the washroom . Later on, living in New Delhi folks were shocked." A fish phobic Mallu? Are you for real ?" Strange that they didn't stereotype my Totally Carnivore Tam Bram husband! This man has eaten everything including frogs legs and cow's entrails!
Well, coming to my story, fish was not in my scheme of things until the day the father convinced the daughter that fried fish was the most exotic dish in the world. My child who is not easily convinced actually was bought over just like that ! Must mention the fish was Red Snapper and my Waterloo was, where else, God's Own Country. So it came to pass , two fish lovers in the house. Soon we moved city to coastal Chennai. Fish was served in our Bengali friend's house , in completely different avtar , yet the child was like Mowgli mesmerised by Nag.
My nemesis came a while later during our trip to Andamans (I'm not going to do another travelogue , so those of you who wish to read Andaman chronicles pl go to my brother's blog!!!) It was a real off beat trip , not your regular holiday ( never meant to be as it was a research trip for my better half ) .We went on a day trip out in the sea on a donghie ( a kind of small boat with a little canopy and fitted with a motor ) to explore some virgin islands. It turned out to be really lucky day for the boat men as their fishing lines yielded great catches ..They caught four huge Kukari fish each weighing 8 kilos or more...It was high excitement for all of us as the boat would tilt precariously when it would be a tug- of- war of sorts by fish and man. Our friends who took us on the trip said this was an unusually lucky day ( luck and us?????) and they'd never had such a haul in so short a time . Later on in the evening , we had a bonfire and one of the ensnared fish was cooked .The fish was truly delicious and out of this world said all the tired and hungry co voyagers of mine. My daughter and nephew would wolf down hot and piping fried fish straight off the tawa as they were stragetically positioned right next to the chef -in -making young Aman, their friend, guide and 'life guard' ( as my nephew put it! ) Being fresh sea fish, there wasn't any odour and as usual with my brother and husband, they were goading me to have some. These guys never stop trying! To make matters worse,there was present a lady who was a self-professed vegan . Suddenly , taking even her husband of zillion years by surprise, she partook of the said fish saying it had no smell what so ever! As if on cue , S pounces on that chance and urges me to do likewise..It's like chicken, try it...Like hell I will... (.Later on further investigation, I found out the lady in question had been vegan only for the last 15 years !!! )So it was not conversion but reversion, I noted with disdain. Anyway Kukari became an elixir for lots of people in my family that day. So much so that on his next trip my husband made sans us, daughter dearest asks for Kukari! Bring back the fish to mainland he did, all the way to Chennai on flight .Enough to last two weeks ! Me , what choice do I have but cook the fella every single day, smell or no smell..So I'm on phone to friends and relatives to get various Fish recipes..It's Kerala fried fish one day, A bengali one next, a fish curry the day after, it goes on and on and on...I 'm stoic and detached Buddha like when I approach the Kukari..Let those who want eat it..After all I know the merits of a fish diet...But eat I shall not.No ,I refuse to believe I'm missing out on anything.