Receptions and roomali rotis!

Hello all! I hope you’re all having a good time in your lives, like I have been!

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy, not that I’m not happy about it, but it has kept me from writing for way too long! Good ideas seem to come to me right when I’m in the middle of some important work. Even if I manage to sit down to write, I get something which effectively distracts me from my rarely occurring cornucopia of ideas… So, I decided to jump into the never ending topic of nostalgia this week!

I happened to come across an instrument soundtrack, rather a jukebox of two of the musical legends of India, Raja Sir and Rahman sir when I had my music on random shuffle. I came across “Ilamai enum poongathu” (1982) and “Kaadhalenum thervezhudhi” (1999) and I was instantly transported to my childhood.

Those were the days me and my sister (me more than her most of the times, I was the gourmand😜)greatly looked forward to any wedding reception any member of the family was invited, because it meant we could be the +1! Those wedding receptions gave us great opportunities to wear our favorite dresses, put on the best makeup and we looked like this most of the time, like most 90s kids🤣

Most of the time, we made it there without even asking our parents whose side we were on, the bride’s or the groom’s and so went on stage to shake both their hands and wished them a happy married life. Often, neither the bride nor the groom knew who we were, so they gave us a smile and thanked us. It was mostly a representation of their overall happiness and the obligation to smile in pictures rather than actual acknowledgement of who we were🤣. I won’t blame them though, in Indian weddings, you probably will never know half of your own guests and that’s entirely acceptable😂

Before going onstage, it was absolutely necessary to check the length of the line of people waiting to meet the couple; if it was too long, going to eat first was really acceptable option. I was really happy about that part though🤣Most of the weddings had certain inevitable food items, one of them being this papery white dish.

This delicacy, known as the roomali roti and it was usually served with a paneer butter masala. Other inevitable items included dosas of any kind, a variety rice and a curd rice. If there were more items than we could eat, we used to get different dishes in order to taste them all and our plates would look like this

Looking back at all this, I couldn’t help but reminisce the beautiful and innocent childhood we had (it extended to our teens in fact) and I’m really glad I got to have those experiences and retained some of the capacity to remain happy regardless of other’s opinions even after I became an adult.

What is your best memory of your childhood? I greatly look forward to hear from you all.

Have a lovely week!

From,

Your Random Indian Girl