Chithappa and Mahalabhiya

I grew up around a father and mother who were always busy. They were the best kind, and instilled much love and stability in the family – however, they were always busy. Or rather that’s the message that I got as a child. But the arrival of chithappa every weekend was a breath of fresh air amidst the busy working routine of my parents.

He would take me on long walks, let me play video games and ride-on toys. He would answer my funny questions and tell me like a hundred stories. There was one very special thing that we would do together, and the picture is so clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

Across the road, we went to this restaurant. Chithappa would always be adventurous and choose strangely named food items from the menu card. One day, we decided to have mahalabiya. We didn’t know what it was but decided to give it a shot. And to our surprise it was fabulous. We enjoyed it so much.

Mahalabhiya with chithappa became a religious ritual ever since. Every time we went out, just the both of us, we would definitely eat mahalabiya together. I enjoyed it so much. We moved out from that state, and soon our eating interests changed too. However, mahalabiya is a desert I can never forget.

Because Mahalabiya reminded me of the many ways chithappa was a friend and someone with whom I could have long ‘point-less’ conversations. Now that I am an adult, I wonder how chithappa had the patience to spend so much time talking to me, listening to me playing with me, and filling my love tank. He was like my best favorite adult friend.

Arpana is fortunate too, to have many loving adult friends, - her athais and her chithi. When she talks with them and goes out with them, memories with my own chithappa flash before my mind – especially the mahalabiya outings.

I was so tied to the context in which I ate this dessert, it became symbolic of my time with chithappa – that I almost forgot that it a desert that I recreate in my kitchen. I took some help from Google mamma, and I made it – and it tasted nice – but I so missed eating it with chithappa.

Maybe sometime soon, I will eat mahalabiya with chithappa and bombard him with more of my pointless conversations.

                                                   The Mahalabiya that I ate alone.