Saturday Sept 1, 2007 : The Preparation Begins...
Its no joke to prepare lunch for 17 people. Especially an Onasadhya (Onam feast) to 17 hungry mallus who are away from home in a foreign land. So to get the raw materials for this Herculean task, we started shopping at Saturday morning. Mootta, Devu and us went to farmers market in charlotte. Since it was a long weekend, the crowd was much less. I guess all desi crowd was out of charlotte visiting the must see spots in US. Well, hands down, charlotte is not one of them. But for the 17 mallus who are in town, we plan to make this trip a memorable one.
Next stop was Asian Groceries run by a mallu. We had ordered Vazha Ila (Banana leaves) for Onasadhya -- can't have sadhya without it. While shopping we were constantly mentioning Sweety's name, who is coming from Jackson, Mississippi. She is in pachakam (cooking) head committe and had decided on the menu with strict instructions to purchase from the list given. So the owner of the shop got curious and asked who is coming. Is she like an authentic brahmin girl who is so strict in cooking Onasadhya according to the standards. Sweety's stories started spreading in charlotte hours before she is even in town. Well this onam is going to be fun. We all agreed on that.
After a heavy lunch and enough rest, the girls - Devu, Shimna and Vini started the preparations for the sadhya. In original plan, saturday's dinner was supposed to be outside, since we didn't want to disturb the girls and take up the kitchen from them. But Mootta had a great idea. He said we will just have a little rice and little cherupayaru thoran (moong dal curry). Its so easy, we can prepare this in minutes. This seemed like a good idea at first for many and Koshy took up the initiative. But like any other meals, the menu increased in minutes and he found himself cooking rice, chicken curry and thoran. And you would have guessed, Mootta was no where to be seen near the kitchen.
No act like this goes unpunished in Jabaaz. Once mootta was back after picking up Ratheesh and Priyan, he was punished. Because of presence of his wife Devu, his sentenced was reduced from kicks to 101 eethams (situps with both hands on ear). This was a warning for all such future ideas. The next lucky one was priyan. He was guilty of not attending to chicken curry, even though he was specifically instructed. Nobody else did, but that is out of the scope of discussion. He was sentenced to do the task of Adimakannu (slave -- a term awarded to Renjimon in 2005 Onam).
All night Priyan was washing dishes thrown at him by the pachakam committee. And to top it all, vini was examining the dishes he washed for the "squeak" sound by rubbing her finger. But since Jabaaz were happy with his performance, he was given "In memories of Renji mon -- Adimakannu Award". We called Renjimon at night 12 to wish Happy Onam. Since he didnt come for this Onam and ran away from the responsibility of hosting it, it was decided he shouldnt sleep either.
The next batch to arrive was Sweety, Sumesh and Kuriaparampil. Kuriaparampil had taken a bus from Dallas to Jackson and from there all 3 of them drove to charlotte. Sorry one correction, Sumesh and Kuri drove and Sweety provided the entertainment, by speaking. Sumesh was meeting all of us for the first time and like JAKKI he too had such a wonderful experience. He was like the new groom who married a girl from a big joint family. The relatives are always too much to handle and poor Sumesh inherited so many Jabaaz by marrying Sweety. Even though he was initially surprised, i think ( hope!!! ) by the end he learned to live with us.
Last to arrive was Kshema and Ashwin from Seattle. With the whole gang in place, the party was rocking. The kitchen was in full swing, with all 5 girls busy in cooking. There was always a group of 4 or 6 playing cards. And since we had so many artists among us, there was always music in the air. Ashwin, Koshy, Priyan and Devu being the stars. Pachakam committee decided to call it a day (or night or early morning) around 2AM. Families settled into their house but bachelors stayed for another hour playing cards and also watching my college cd which had many of the guest list members in their old unrecognisable shape.
No comments:
Post a Comment