What shall we eat?

I called Baba today and we discussed my impending trip to Mumbai. I am planning to visit with Arhan. It will be my fourth trip in 7 months. I visited in July for a few days. I went to spend time with Ma and Baba. I knew she wasn’t well. I wanted to see her. So despite my husbands great consternation I went to India. I saw their new apartment for the first time. She wasn’t terribly happy about it and missed didi’s apartment a lot where she had been living for 8 years. Even though she lived the longest in our nerul flat, I don’t think she (or I) had any fondness for it. My memories of the time of my life are fond but not that flat. While I was there I went with her to the doctors office to pick up her UTI test results. She bought me a laddoo at the local snack shop because I was hungry. We also got samosas for my friends who were coming to lunch. She had made fish curry and Mulu and Akshay, old friends absolutely enjoyed it. I also fell ill that trip and she came with Baba to drop me to the airport. I felt sick and tired and somehow very despondent at leaving her that time. 

The next two trips are probably ones I will forget the least. 

But right before my July trip Arhan had visited. Ma made him fish and eggs and Mac n cheese. So Baba asked me who will make him Mac n cheese this time? I said I don’t know. Who will make us luchi this time? I don’t know. And then it became clearer to me that along with her I’d lost my connection to the food she made. With each of our generations we are losing this piece of the lives our parents built. They brought to Bombay the food they ate in Bengal. They adapted. We moved away and married into other communities. The cooking has diluted so much. I feel angry with myself for having lost my mothers food. The ability to recreate her cooking is at best negligible. Add to that the influence of other cooking and it’s completely gone. My son doesn’t speak Bengali. And we continue to lose this piece of what we grew up with. It feels like a much bigger loss now.