Remembering Papa

It is my father's birthday today. 

He was born in 1947.

Among his many quirks, one that comes to mind is the preference for Bengali sweets to puran polis which were made at home. We had a repertoire of four desserts - shira, shevaya chi kheer, shrikhand and puranpoli, of which the puranpolis were made on most festival days and other desserts when there were people for lunch or dinner or shira for breakfast as well. The Bengali sweets on very, very rare occasions were store-bought.

On occasion when no one else was around to, he would cook - he had his specialties. Tomato and green chutney sandwiches, egg fried rice, fluffy omelettes, kel phul and peanuts jeera rice and cabbage fried rice. 

And was an impulsive traveller. Out of the blue he would say he was going someplace and would like company. And if you rose up to the occasion then generally you had rigorous rides in uncomfortable conditions.

My most memorable

are walking alongside the car, on the old Mumbai- Pune road with a torch light as it was pouring and nothing was visible from the car,

a  day trip to Chiplun switching multiple ST buses, 

a drive  to Bhimashankar for the forested routes and back,

in the side car of his two wheeler to Ghatkopar and

a trip to Pandharpur on the narrow gauge train on a Bharat bandh day (there was no food available and we found and bought some cucumbers that we ate through the day!)

I could go on! But I'll stop for today. This is enough nostalgia I guess!

Penned on 17 Feb 2020

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