Family Dinner
To new beginnings
This wasn’t going to be any other dinner. No sir, Bhoomi has been looking forward to this gathering for months now. Perhaps this is what living in a big city away from your family does to you. She still remembers it like yesterday. Going to college in Delhi was a dream come true. It was the first time that she would leave behind those trees, the hills, the smell of Dehradun… to never come back. Nope. Delhi was her ticket to freedom and she had sworn on the old gods and new that this was it. But such is the nature of home perhaps, It was 2015 when she had left the bazaars, the Vikrams ( autos of Dehra), and the hills for the college life of Delhi. That was 2015. And four years later there she was 24th December 2019, three years of college, countless internships, and a stable-job-of-a-Business-Analyst later, she was finally going back home.
What made this evening even more special was the fact that even her extended family was going to be there: Ramesh Mama, her uncle, who owned a retail store in Rishikesh, his wife Supriya Mami, their twin children, Adya and Akshay, the former on her first winter break from her engineering curriculum at Kurukshetra and the latter just back from his first NDA posting. This was also when Bhoomi, after ages, would see the little munchkin, Adya and Akshay’s younger sister, Shreya. At the thought of her chubby cheeks, Bhoomi fluffed the giant Teddy that she had brought Shreya as a gift, of course exactly according to her demands.
As the train enters Dehra, Bhoomi feels the chill in the air. In a moment, the stress of her #GurugramLyf melts away. Life there was just so fast, it always seemed a little out of reach. Everyone seemed so caught up in the grind of life, that mere existence had become exhausting. That is how Bhoomi has been for the last 5 years — running an endless race, just to keep up. With her studies and the news, with her job and her friends, with her family and her love, with her problems and the worlds, yet never feeling fulfilled enough. The next five hours were nothing but a huge blanket burrito wrap from all the members of her family. The ache in her shoulders from working tireless nights or the lonely heaviness in her heart, all seem to have disappeared. Every Archies cliche about family seems to be true. Oh, Home Sweet Home!
Later in the evening as Bhoomi helps her mother prepare for dinner she is called on by Shreya, “Bhoomi Didi…”
“Yes, Shreya — ”, Bhoomi says taking her on her lap.
“I have a Social Studies exam tomorrow and if I don’t revise everything before dinner then Papa won’t let me sit with you, Akshay Bhaiya and Adya Didi, please just quiz me once na and then tell Papa that I am ready.”
“How about we revise together?” Shreya was elated at Bhoomi’s proposal. So for the next hour, they revised every possible concept from ‘What is a Democracy’ and ‘Significance of Panchayati system’ to ‘the weather conditions in The Northern Plains’ and the ‘Governance of the Delhi Sultanate’. As Shreya beams with confidence in her exam preparation, Bhoomi couldn’t help but wonder about the simpler times when there was this level of consensus about facts. Soon they are joined by everyone else… traditional greetings are exchanged between the siblings and the elders as they settle down for the dinner.
“So, how has Gurugram been treating you Bhoomi… its been so long since we’ve seen you. How come you never visited all these years?” asked Supriya Mami.
“I mean Mami, it was not intentional, it’s just that when I started college I realized there is so much I had to do, over and beyond the curriculum itself to be ahead of my competitors… a lot of time was just spent doing extra courses and taking my CFA exams, ” Bhoomi replied
“Oh, that’s great, but still no surprises there… I mean you were always one of the smart ones… I was actually worried that you too might have caught the protest bug. I’ve heard its quite trendy there among you youngsters,” chuckled Supriya Mami. Even before she could complete the sentence it was evident that on our dining table in that room had descended an eerie silence which screamed: “So, are we going there fam?!”
When you have lived in the metro cities you realize that Politics is a big talking point. In her own office, Bhoomi knew for a fact that her colleague Rahul was not invited to the Boss’s Christmas party because he dared to speak his mind… and let’s just say, that didn’t sit well with Bossman Mr. Mehta. Did Rahul’s opinion have some meat? Was he talking sense? Well, that’s a different debate for another day. But the point is Rahul disagreed, and his impeccable quarterly performance went down the gutter (along with a possible Best Performance Award, just saying!) It was also a silent statement to other employees, one that everyone heard loud and clear. While this tacit silence was against everything that she believed in and knew that the country she loved stood for, Bhoomi constantly faced the dilemma of where to speak and where not to. Had she spoken up that day her career would have been on the line. And you know what they say about picking one’s battles, right? But why was she feeling so restless today? Why did Supriya Mami’s words drive this wedge through her gut? What was at stake? She doesn’t have to scream at India Gate or constantly retweet someone to prove her love for her country, but should she remain silent today too?
“I don’t get what you are talking about Mami, could you please elaborate on that?” Bhoomi asks as calmly as possible, her tone, undeniably caustic.
“Bhoomi!” Her mother warns while the rest of the family silently watches, perhaps calculating their options and positions…should they duck, hide or stand tall in the face of this upcoming, inevitable dinner table storm?
“No Didi, it’s OK, she is after all just a child and she needs to know. She might even know perhaps she is brainwashed by the media. I mean I don’t understand which educated person of this country sees the point or some preservation of the constitution with what has been happening in Delhi. The actions of the government… NO, sorry, constitutionally elected government doing constitutionally mandated work, demands faith… not an anarchic uprising in the national capital for God’s sake”, heaves a visibly agitated Supriya Mami.
“Supriya, we have already discussed this… if everything you said is constitutionally mandated then so is the right to protest” Ramesh Mama intervened. “If you don’t have anything good to say about the protestors then withhold the bad. You just said that these protestors are educated, right? No educated person wants to disrupt their life to such an extent for a cause unless they feel so passionately about it.”
“We just read today that it is because of movements like Civil Disobedience among others that we won independence, right Bhoomi didi?” chimes Shreya.
“YES, and we got that independence already, Shreya. Who are these people demanding Independence from, NOW? Half the slogans they shout make no sense at all. My heart bleeds when they disrespect our institutions. I mean, Akshay is in the military, he puts his life on the line every day and I know what sacrifices he has made and will make throughout his life. When they disrespect THAT, I am sorry but it just hurts”, joins in my mother.
“But Bua, I know what I went into and I am proud of my decision. My job is to serve this country irrespective of whether the institution is respected or not and I can’t protect some and neglect the others. This is one of the reasons why I am proud of this country and its institution that I serve, because no matter whether you agree or disagree with what is happening all around, you have an equal place here.” Bhoomi smiled to herself on Akshay’s reply.
“Still, you have to agree that there is something about these colleges in Delhi, that all these protests are concentrated there. Adya is also in a government college but you won’t find any of this nonsense there. And before you people start labeling me… I am not some bigot sitting out here, I am just calling out the common denominators.” says Supriya Mami.
At this point, Bhoomi couldn’t help herself. “Mami, when you don’t agree with what is happening in your house you don’t go to some remote corner of the house and mumble, right? You go to the living room and ask for the entire family to assemble. Secondly, what you are calling common denominator here are students, opinions, knowledge and think about the gravity of emotions when dissent is coming from all corners of the society, be it educated or the disadvantaged, rich or poor, young or old. I am not asking for your agreement but at least you can listen to the other side, before outright dismissing them.”
“Mom, we can’t get out of our college after 7:30 and out of the hostel after 8:30. Once a girl wore a Capri to class and the teacher humiliated her in front of everyone. We have heard of a senior who called out the administration on the unreasonably low wages of the mess workers and he was then failed in all the subjects and denied his degree.”
“Adya, beta why did you never mention these before — ”, Supriya Mami said, confusion and disbelief on her face.
“Mom, we don’t “not speak up” because we like how things are or we don’t have anything to complain about… it’s because we are scared of what will happen if we do”. Adya’s voice was as quiet as a whisper, yet loud enough to stun the room.
“This has indeed been quite a discussion… Adya beta there is an ideal world and a real one and as much as we would want to live in this ideal world, the truth is it is just as detached from the real one. Yet we continue to dream of it… we can’t help but navigate the world with our eyes set on the ideal. I am glad you are taking note of the disparities, and I hope that someday your generation can do something about the things we could not do anything about. It’s not hard being your generation because while we struggled to survive your generation struggles to live and all I can say is that it is important to be rational in that process,” my Father broke his silence. I could feel Adya welling up. There is silence in the room again, but this time there is warmth in that silence. There are moments when the transition from the innocence of childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood couldn’t be more profound. This was one such moment. Even little Shreya had a glimmer of determination on her face. While the elders — usually the ones canceling party plans and calling our generation weak — looked tired but hopeful.
“The Cake is delicious bhabhi,”
“yeah, I made a chocolate cake, because I know its Bhoomi’s favorite,” Mami says pinching my cheeks as if I was four years old.
“To be honest Mami, I missed this cake more than I missed Shreya” I couldn’t help but pull Shreya’s leg.
“Who came here for Shreya? It was the cake all along, right Adya?” Akshay added fuel to the fire, and Adya played along, “Of course it was for the cake… wait did Shreya think everyone came here to meet her?”
“Mummmmyyyyy look at what they are doing naa.” Shreya ran to her mom stomping her foot.
The elders snicker, food plates are passed.
A starting point.
About the story
This is a story about Bhoomi and her experience of a family dinner which lies in the background of longing for family and diverse opinions on the dinner table. Our protagonist faces a dilemma of when to speak up and when not to. When it comes to the topic of protests there are some diverse opinions as seen on the table, yet it is very interesting to see how the family navigates past that. Through this story, there is a hope that the reader somewhere sees a reflection of the different opinions in their own families and society at large and realizes that although there’s a struggle to reach consensus, these conversations can also lead to empathetic beginnings.
