Last night at dinner we had assorted food items, together they made no sense. There was allo ki bhujia, tauriye ka salan (zucchini), Mom's chinese leftovers from lunch, chappatis and mangoes. Mangoes bring out 'funny' in from the people, the ripe yellow sweet smelling piece of ecstasy leaves many drooling, so is the case with my Dad.
My Dad is a big fan of mangoes. He will dutifully skip lunch or dinner if he can enjoy mangoes. The thing with my Dad is he has this well sophisticated cut out persona that doesnt leave him with much space to eat mangoes cut into slices with his hands if he is a guest at somebody's place. At other people's place he only touches mangoes if they are cut into cubes and served with bowls and forks. But at home he lets his guard down and thoroughly enjoys eating mangoes with his hands.
Until I was 10, I thought 'amm ki ghutli' is not something you eat, you just through it away because that is what my Dad taught me. It was too unsophisticated to get your hands dirty and nearly eat like a savage, mind you. Things though have changed now. Last night Dad cleared chalked out on tray a virtual line with a knife that marked that the slices on the left are his which has 2 aam ki ghultis in it and the ones on the right are mine, though if I didn't want to eat he will be very glad to 'help' me do it. My mom doesnt enjoy mangoes - which probably is another blog story itself because she says 'Its toooooooo sweet'. Anyway in the middle of this whole mango thing something funny happened. When Baba was eating the ghutli it slipped out his hand and slipped on his shirt. To see such a calculated neat man on a mercy of a little thing like that - I burst into crazy laughter. My Mom 'I am SO not washing that!' - instantly light went out.
Dinner was almost done so we started to clear up the dish. Then when my mother was outta earshot my Dad goes like 'Anam go bring your cellphone'
I am like... 'Why?' :S
He says "We need to find the ghutli - I think it is down on the floor under the dinning table" :D
- So we started this search for the aam ki ghutli under our dinning table, then the fridge, then the dispenser - No ghulti found.
I asked him 'Is it in your pockets by any chance?'
Though he looked at me incredulously, he checked. NOTHING.
After the power came back we checked again. NOTHING.
So Mom said 'We will leave it to the band of marching ants for search'
Today - the ghulti is still missing :D
