I was really surprised when amma said “why don’t you call your friends to cook?”. 
“You mean Annie ?”, I confirmed.
“Annie, pony who ever your wonderfully cooking friend is..” replied amma.
I was surprised that my mom was ready to share the kitchen with someone other than my sister, an awesome cook(definitely not trying to butter her to make my trip to Dubai). Well, I don’t remember seeing amma cook with anybody else. May be my praising over Annie’s cooking to amma has worked :D. But then all this is happening for Shalu (my dear brother-in-law Vikku’s wife) who is carrying the sweetest load that only women get to carry.
I have always liked this beautiful badaga custom of cooking a feast for the pregnant couple (of course the husband deserves it too). There is no equivalent to the happiness one gets out of offering or consuming food.
Annie was sweet enough to accept my request without any hesitation with her exams just around the corner but a little nervousness to cook with amma is what she expressed. That is obviously is because she didn’t know my amma enough to cook along in the kitchen I guess. To fix a date for the feast really took more than 2 weeks because Shalu’s schedule was jam-packed with the feast by all the relatives. Finally my turn was confirmed to lunch on a Wednesday, which means I would have to rush to office once we are done with the feast. Fortunately, Rahul also would be joining on the same day provided he doesn’t forget to buy or carry his train ticket from Chennai. I also invited Aarthi to join us because its been quiet some time since we had met and its her birthday the next day. Aarthi had to sacrifice her day time nap schedule to make it to the feast.
It sounds good already. A small and beautiful gathering to focus on making the one happy. I couldn’t wait for the day to come. The day before the feast is when I had to take Annie to get the required groceries and vegetables. I couldn’t believe the patience that she had while picking the vegetables. She had to inspect each vegetable for more then one quality parameters before she approved it and put it into the cart that I was let to carry.
“Illa aunty, konjam potta podum…”, I heard Annie tell amma as I entered the kitchen to leave the chicken which would be a delicious curry in few hours. I tried to be a good boy and choose to stay away from the kitchen. But amma took the risk. She asked me help her out with scraping the coconut. I used the dark metal coconut scraper which I believe has scraped coconut even for my great grandfather. I had to sit on the floor locking the scraper’s position with my right leg and held one half the coconut in my left hand pressing against the scraper and my right hand had to rotate the handle to scrape the coconut. I had scraped two full coconuts and immediately prepared some juice for all.
After having the juice I also did the usual “Surjee in kitchen” thing. I obviously by mistake broke the glass mug out of which I drank my juice. Unfortunately tiny pieces of the shattered glass fell into the scraped coconut that I had left on the floor. Even before anybody could think, I had decided that I will have to immediately run out and get new coconuts and scrape them right away. But I had to show signs of shock for a few seconds, feel sorry for another few, ask “amma what to do?” and wait for her to come up with a solution while she was trying to pick out the glass pieces. Within a minute, as I had decided a decade back, amma asked me to rush and get coconuts. Within minutes I returned with the coconut and realised that we were already running late as per our schedule. Again I scraped the coconuts with just my right hand this time using the wet grinder. I found the scraping accessory after raiding the busy kitchen for 10 minutes.
Aarthi and Rahul had already reached Shalu’s place where Vikku, Shalu and Hema aunty were warm in welcoming us though we were supposed to be the host. Immediately the naughty bunch (Aarthi, Annie, Raghul and Surjee) had started their monkey business of taking photographs. I wonder why Annie looked so reserved that day where only Aarthi was new to her. Anyway the feast went on fine solving the ultimate purpose of sharing a beautiful time with loved ones especially the couple.
Later came the pain when I was at work. My right palm has swollen a little between my thumb and index fingers and the joints on both my palms were aching. I knew it was the border level arthritis which my orthopaedic said I could be suffering from when I consulted him a few months back. Fear filled inside me. I couldn’t concentrate and my mind started think about the effects of arthritis which also includes an extreme effect of one’s bone joints getting stiff and immovable. That is when my phone’s vibration in my pocket scared me. I used my phone’s sliding feature to attend the call without looking at who the caller is. It was Annie who desperately wanted some feedback on her cooking today. I just said it was awesome thought it was actually more than that and I immediately told her the condition of my palms.
“Oh… that is because you you had to scrape the coconuts using your palms to press the coconut shell no, that is why it is paining dumbo…!” she said. Phew… and that is exactly when the pain felt good. I had already wasted more than an hour worrying about some stupid disease. I desperately started to feel overwhelmingly happy about my beautiful life.
Therefore, in this first post of the year 2010, I would like to thank all my loved ones for making my life(including the few inevitable pain) beautiful and Wish you all a wonderful 2010.
“May all your dreams come true and your hearts filled with joy year thru.”
last month. Surprised is what I was when a friend pinched my stomach and said “Oh my God” (read that really fast). Now, how did that happen ? 
