Here we go again. It is the last weekend before schools start after a month long break. The perfect time when emotions run high, morale dips to a staggering low and the idea of losing the cushy comforts of home to hard wooden benches in class, offering the opportunity to progress further in the academic year seems daunting. As the most visible effect, the kids look like their cheeks that have grown chubby from living indoors have suddenly dropped and turned into long faces with sullen expressions. The ones that tell me I have let them starve through a blazing summer. 

The effect on my face is different though. I can’t wait to get them out of the house, up and running, and fitting right into their circadian rhythm. I want them wake up at 6, shower, eat and shove them out by 7 so that all of us live like well functioning humans as opposed to potted plants that are found in various corners of the house, and that never leave. 

But getting into the grind also means I suffer from cold feet. It is the exact same feeling that you run into before that final commitment into holy matrimony. So I do what suits me best. Run away from responsibility for some dopamine and catch my breath before the grind begins. So I leave the house under the pretext of running errands and for the lack of any fresh romance, secretly meet the spouse for tea around his workplace and let off some steam. The adrak wali chai that I order, does the same. Together we could make enough fuel to fire a steam engine. And only a relic like me could talk of steam engines in the age of electric vehicles. Back to the cafe. There we find ourselves, seated at a desi cafe, biting on samosa while washing it down with garma garam chai. 

Back home, I find myself warped in pride and confront the older devil. I announce I had a healthy, guilt free samosa. “It was BAKED!”, I add and wait for brownie points from my fashionista for finally putting health before taste. But pat comes her response, “Aisa samosa khane se toh accha tha ki aap kaccha aataa hi kha lete…”

My jaw drops as bouts of laughter rise up my throat. I can’t believe what I just heard. I pat her back while my face goes pink in excitement, I have done my parenting right. Beaming with pride, I tell her even if Yamraj were to announce today as my last day on planet Earth, going would be easy peasy. Because guess what, my work here is done. The legacy of a real samosa is here to stay. All hail, the true blue, fried Samosa!

As evening turns into night, all Deshpande’s find themselves huddled around the dining table. The place that gives me the right to sermon time. Plenty of conversations float around. And with two teenagers there is a natural need and curiosity to speak about crushes, love, talking to strangers and a whole lot of things that came to my generation naturally. We are the real brave hearts that weathered the storm of first love, lost all purpose in life for a full thirty minutes after a maiden break up, stopped dressing up for a week after that rejection from supposedly one dream school or dream job and survived a whole list of things that seem like herculean effort. Surprisingly, we were dealt a firm hand. Life served its many gifts, both bitter and sweet, all in the face. Fortunately, for the lack of smart phones or the internet.

These newer generations will never understand the meaning of stealth or the much abused word – resilience because everything from friendships and love to breakups and pink slips happen over a text. Little wonder then, the world needs more therapists to survive. Closures happen behind closed doors at the counsellor’s office. Technology can never equate the power of in-person, real conversations that form the basis of being human. And phones have coaxed us to relinquish the power of showing courage and venting out. 

And now that my digression by design has made impact, back to the dinner table. I bring out my best brag worthy skills and set them on display, while serving hot and fragrant jasmine rice with Thai curry and mango salad.

I begin my sermon as though all eyes are on me, my show-off mode on. I start by telling how it has always been my super power to verbalize. That I don’t believe in physical aggression. However, before I can go on and on, I don’t realize how the work of my hands has chosen to betray the power of my words. My left palm has unknowingly made a fist and banged that fist somehow, onto the table while my mouth has made the statement to do with non aggression.

While I do not realize my misdoing, I have forgotten I have an ‘attentive audience’. And the 18 year old quickly cuts me in with a cheeky smile. 

“And ironically, you bang your fist in as you say that?”

That breaks all hell loose. There is snickering and cackling and guffawing. And every statement of mine that follows is met with fists bumping the table. 

Lines I never spoke come up too, “I am kind”, followed by fist bump

“I am so chilled out”, followed by another one.

The younger devil starts jumping her eyebrows to add more drama since that is another one of my signature gestures. And the better half joins the opposition as easily as butter spreads over bread. Do I have any choice… indeed. To laugh out loud at my own tomfoolery. 

P.S. Teens spend a lot of time indoors, I mean in their bedrooms. Their doors are shut most of the times. Sooner or later, they will fly away looking to make a life of their dreams. But until then, it is dinner table conversations that will keep family time going.