Thursday Nights in DXB – A Childhood Reminiscence

An image of my hall, with people erased from it

Here goes a tale from childhood, when Thursday meant the world for me as a kid in Dubai

Skipping the morning ritual of going to school, we would be back by 2:30 pm or so back home.

Stowing the schoolbag away under the desk-table - never to be seen until Saturday morning was written in the story, though Amma never approved of that

The best part of the day at school, would be having Art or Music classes, where we would be engrossed in drawing a line or two or singing out of tune to leave my music teacher Mr.Tully red-faced. The art teacher Mr. Geoffrey, was a strict person - so there would be no way out of this, though art was'nt my forte. Huddling together to fill in the dotted lines or coloring the pre-drawn picture never meant much. We had to take Faber Castell coloring sets to school!

Losing one of them color pencils would be unthinkable

After having a rice lunch consisting of Thursday-special chicken curry (courtesy of Amma). The next trip (for me), would be off to the supermarket

Anticipating the weekend, Amma would send me to Maya Lal's (a supermarket chain) - to get bread or kubus. If it was'nt available, OP would be walking through the gullies of Muraqqabat to the Pakistani / Irani appachan's shop. OP also tried to nick a few coins to buy a Tinkle Digest stocked in the book stand at the supermarket

Lounging on the sofa with a Tinkle Digest / Double Digest would be next on the day's agenda. Our blue sofa would carry my little frame as I incredulously wonder about about anecdotes shared by readers in the "It happened to me" section.

My brother never used to fiddle around with books, so reading stories with Ram Waeerkar and Savio Mascernhas' illustrations with kutty stories made my weekend evenings, accompanied by the hum of the TV and human voices in the background. I’d just lie down with a book in my hands, completely lost in the pages, without a single worry in the world.

As usual, our home played guest to relatives during the weekends. Uppapans or Acha's brother, who were then bachelors chipped in with kappa, while we would have brought some pork or fish mid-week. They would announce their arrival in the evening with a bag of those, while the TV hummed in the background.

Fish selections that go well with kappa or kubus would be Crab or any fish that had lots of flesh. Crab comes immediately to mind, because kutty me would be struggling with one, while desperately getting hold of some meat!

Amma would have something bubbling on the stove in no time, while chattering away about nattuvarthamanam with Acha and uncles in the living room. Our hall used to be pretty kutty small back then

Don't forget the crack of an Absolut. That bag contained some cans of Canada Dry too!

Nattuvarthamanam and the humming of the TV would continue, while I would be struggling with flicking pages of my Tinkle Digest and getting a mouthful of that comfort, in curry form. Amma would continue ladling out, until the elders could barely utter a "mathi chechie / dee"

Eating never mattered to me back then.

The taste of the food still lingers when I visit my place in Kerala, but it's the memories that truly remain. The warmth of family, the quiet comfort, that pure, bottled essence of love within a tiny apartment. That’s what lingered, long enough for me to tell you this story.