I decided to archive the journey that our food recipes took along with us from a tiny village in undivided Bengal to the megapolis of Mumbai. The food we eat is very special to our family and has metamorphosized into blends of cultures we have lived with over the last seventy-five years in various parts of India. However, within these blends there lie some authentic recipes which have stood the test of time.

My note here is a starting point of my quest to document and archive the food that we eat on our dining tables every day, some ordinary and others celebratory to ensure that they are cherished in the decades to come by our children and others.

Am I indisciplined, lazy or not motivated enough to enjoy a good 4km walk by myself?

I have never figured this out. Scatterbrained is a good word to describe my thoughts as I have to work hard to stay on purpose with anything. Is this something deep within me or something that has happened in context over decades? I may never know.

It takes me a lot to condition myself to get out early morning stillness into the sporting gear for a walk or sprint, but once I am in it, the rigor and determination ttakeover.

I hope I am able to maintain this habit for good. In a mind that is constantly at work, developing a simple habit of working out every morning has been my most challenging task.

A bike excursion to Chembur..we clocked 25 kms

The story of a Bengali Family as it transcended the annals of time and across geographies in then undivided India.

Our grandparents pose with their sons, daughters, nephew, nieces and grand kids in a beautiful group photograph probably in Surat, Gujarat. Surat was the hub of cotton textile production, a city that my maternal grandparents migrated to from Barisal in undivided Bengal. While they carried stories of trauma from losing their homes and lands from the partition of India, their indomitable spirit to build their lives from scratch led them to a promising land of divided yet secular India.

Secular India in 1947 was rife with stories of partition and violence. The displacement of people across Hindu and Muslim boundaries led to migrations from eastern and western fronts of India.

So this is the first time I had my baby puke on me…the first time I could smell what his bowels give out on an unprecedented dosage of antibiotic which was probably not the best measure when he has had a hearty meal. 

Cheesy and curdled…it fell all over him as he tried hard to throw the ugly smelling and bad tasting medicine out of his system much like the way I used to when I was fed quinine by my mum as a child to ward of malarial fever

But there is something profound about the experience…as a father somewhere I have lost my aversion to a situation such as this…where the smell of vomit has had very little effect on me