Aditya Sharma Mr. Iannelli English 11 Honors 16 January 2018 Curry Makes it a Party “Adi come help me finish making the roti before the guests comes!” I immediately rushed downstairs to do the finishing touches on the vegetable curry while my mom handled the decorations. I looked for the coriander in the fridge and sprinkled some on the top of the curry, plated it, and put it on the table. I was the only one in the family my mom could trust with making food – my brother and my dad were one hundred percent incompetent. As far back as I remember, my mom’s vegetable curry has been present in my life. This dish isn’t just a food, but the traditional values that have been passed through from India to America. Coming from a family of immigrants, traditional values have been ingrained in my daily life. My mom learned how to cook from her mom, who learned from her mom, all the way to ancestors from hundreds of years ago. Not having a daughter, my mom continued this tradition through me. Because of this, ever since I could turn the stove on, I have helped my mom make dinner. Making dinner together allowed me and my mom to share a special bond. At home, this was a nice, relaxing way for me and my mom to bond, but before get togethers, it was hell. Back at home, my mom and I were working frantically as my brother and dad touched up the house. It was crunch time. I maintain my belief that Indian families are the most judging families. One time, I overheard a conversation with my mom and one of her friends in which her “friend” said, “Look at the desk that’s underneath the sofa. It’s so disgusting.” Because of this, everything had to be perfect. We needed to have perfect manners, the perfect house, and the perfect food. There couldn’t be one mistake. This only put more pressure on me. There is no room to mess up, I think, I just can’t. My nerves calmed down slightly, but my I still felt pressure. The guests finally arrived and I, tired from all the cooking and cleaning thought, It is time to start. They walk in to our house and it everything is impeccable. It smells like clean linen; There is food spread out over the dining table, a selection of more drinks than Buckingham Palace, yet I was still not satisfied. Every step I took tired me. It was 5:30 PM, and I already wanted to sleep. Until this point, I hadn’t known that there were little kids coming. I had the responsibility of taking care of the kids and making sure that they don’t kill each other. This was more simply said than done. It might as well be scientifically proven that there is nothing more painful than stepping on a LEGO block, and boy, did I step on a lot of those. “Hey, those are my pieces”, one of the boys said. “That’s why I left them in the corner.” There is no way that I was this petty as a kid, I thought to myself. Now I looked with hindsight. Looking back, these get-togethers represented a little bit more than just meeting people. Just like clockwork, every week, we would have a family gathering with the same group of people with few variables. For half of my life, I had gone through the weekend ritual of making food and cleaning up the house. In some ways, it shaped me to who I am now. During the week, because of stuff like homework, video games, and television, I never spent quality time engaging with family and partaking in Indian traditions. These get togethers allowed me to develop myself by learning Indian food culture and bonding more with my family, particularly my mom. The kids continued to make a ruckus. All I had to do was last until dinner and then I could just go upstairs and check out for the night. The one week I didn’t have a forensics tournament, I had the same amount of work and annoyance as if I did have one. “Okay kids, it’s dinner time!” my mom called from the kitchen. “Come get it before it gets cold.” I ran up the stairs from the basement as if there was money falling from the sky. If somebody saw me run up the stairs, they would have never guessed that I was as tired as a unathletic elderly man that just finished the mile. I felt a sense of satisfaction when I gazed upon the vast assortment of food. Looking at the vegetable curry and the roti, all the hard work which my mom and I had put in before was immediately worth it -- and I hadn’t even tasted it yet. The best part of the entire get together, besides when it ends, is when you take the first bite from the vegetable curry. I grabbed a plate, a spoon for serving, and a seat, preparing myself for dinner. As I reached in to get some roti, my mom slapped my hand. “Wait until everybody else comes. Show some manners. Don’t be rude,” she said. I had spent all of whatever energy I had left on my dash up the stairs. Now I would have to wait at least 10 more minutes for the kids to come up. I wanted to accelerate this process. I opened the door to the basement and screamed “PASTA!”. It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds, and all of kids were at the dinner table, ready to eat. For some reason, in the context of food, Indian American kids are incredibly eurocentric. They love the pasta and croissants of the Italians and the French but take for granted the exemplary qualities of Indian cuisine. While the kids ate their pasta, I ate my vegetable curry and roti. I had taken 3 servings before most of the kids had even taken one. Shoveling food in my mouth, I tried to save every second of sleep. It wasn’t long before I had exhausted myself from eating and retreated upstairs. With all of the food in my stomach and the tiredness in my bones, I hit the hay and checked out completely.
