[ad_1]
When a friend loses a loved one, I often express condolences “They don’t really leave us, not really. They’re not here like they used to be. “However, if someone told me, I don’t know how much I would receive. She didn’t know I was the woman I was. I never saw her defeated, but I knew she gave up. She never saw me struggle with the catastrophic guilt of absence, nor also news of my depression.Did he think I was left out because I rejected him? Did he think I no longer loved him and so I left him to die alone?
I was Dadurena taste tester. Chunks of chicken, lamb, goat, or fish, wrapped in a small steel bowl with a little broth and a delicious spoon, would reach into my lap as I sat in a cloth bag reading or drawing or drawing in multiple notebooks. . No one else was trustworthy in that task. Dad watched me, smiling, as I tasted what he was guessing. On all the damn days I regret that I never had to give away just compliments, as the contents of the container were always horrible. “It is very good!” I would make a pinch, split the bowl and spoon apart. He smiled, gestured, and returned to the kitchen. I would like to pause to consider salt levels, acidity, spice prevalence, onion garlic and the relationship to ginger. But now I wasn’t a person. The small steel bowl was just a foretaste of the big dish I would eat later, it exchanged the preface to the many conversations we would have about spices, stews, and grains as we grew up.
Perhaps the most indelible contribution he made to my life was quite literal. Every weekend, I would sit down with a book from Dadu’s exercise notebook. Carefully, I recreated each letter of the alphabet, uppercase and lowercase, in pencil and pen, over and over and over again. Similar to the answers I gave to the cook, Dadu was always happy with my effort. Frustration When I expressed frustration in front of my lowercase g and N uppercase, he patiently showed me how to correct it. He told me in Bengali almost all the stories of O. Henry, after reading and loving him as a boy.
Telemako, Friend it was his favorite, and every time he told me the story, perhaps as he entered me into the night, I would remember asleep in Greek mythology that he was the son of Ulysses and Penelope of Telemachus; he left the house to find his father, to find out that Ulysses had come to him before. Dad would praise my memory and continue with the story. I was in college before I realized how strange it was that Dadu translated the stories of one of America’s most famous storytellers into Bengali, who, like me, lived in New York and Texas, long before his grandfather could ever meet him. I would live in two places. When I lived in Manhattan on Irving Place —O. Henry himself lived, worked, and drank for many years — I bought a drink at Pete’s Tavern and wept happily, thinking the day I could tell Daduri about the one-block pilgrimage.
In all the years I spent away from him I didn’t notice him in any way like him. According to my grandfather’s instructions, I first wrote in pencil, in handwriting, then I wrote a second sketch (“direct copy,” in his words) on a fountain pen. He appreciated the invaluable fountain pen — the relics of the time that people had to trust and care for in their instruments — instead of taking them for granted. I consider my writing to be an art form, the way Dad did his own thing, and he sends letters by mail to friends all over the country. If I’m watching any food on TV, everyone around me needs to shut up to listen and learn. The nature of the food helps me feel closer to the people so that they can come together to meet each other at a meal I have prepared. Dadu seems to be kind enough to teach me cooking for others, but it was much bigger than what the food should give you than the meal you prepared. You gave them some very good food dishes, but they gave them time, energy, love, patience, openness, comment, gratitude. You witnessed their happiness. What could be a greater gift?
[ad_2]
Source link
