Winter and Picnics

 

I miss winter. 

The season itself has so many great memories attached to it. As a child it was mostly cakes, picnics, farmers market and vacations. As an young adult it was new found love for winter fashion, eating, barbeque parties. Now mostly its the option to go out in the sun, curl up with a cup of coffee and a book. 

This was way back in December  of 1989 or 1988 the year may have slipped my mind but the experience is imprinted big and bold in a happy corner of my mind. Yeah, the happy corner is very useful these days, been accessing it quite frequently in this pandemic. 

Every December my cousin would visit us from the city to detox. We all were very fond of him, him being the single child would be quite enthusiastic about spending time with us. Every year we had to come up with something new to enrich his visit. 

That year it was surprisingly my elder sister spoke up at dinner table  " Tomorrow we will do an adventure".

My cousins eyes shone though his thick glasses, a mischievous smile cracked through his face " What kind of adventure?".

" Tomorrow we will camp in the wild" my sister smirked. 

" Are you serious?" I perked up, thinking she was faking it. 

" Yes, get up early tomorrow morning, we have a tent to pitch" I looked at the retreating behind of my sister, she walked away to build up the suspense.

I knew there were no camp grounds, the concept of camping is very limited to some limited touristy spots in India and our small town was not one of them. Finally I came to conclusion that we will be camping out in the open ground beside our quarters. 

I was up before my sister woke up, patiently waiting for our day to begin. Thick fog hung in the air till about seven a.m. By eight in the morning my mother was in the kitchen prepping breakfast for ten people in the house. A quick nod from my sister  and we slipped out from the kitchen door. The dew from the grass immediately dampened our shoes, we could see a hazy yellow bulb in the sky, which was the sun. I was holding a iron rod which was a part of our gardening tools and my sister had a machete in hand. With her instructions from the backyard we managed to chop some bamboo into six feet portions and a bag of broken bricks we walked towards the open fields where a decade back my parents had planted paddy in those fields. That's a story for another time. 

A clay stove

Within a hour we had planted those bamboo portions and tied one of Mum's saree to cover three sides and voila our camp was ready. Mum brought in a red clay charcoal stove, it was already lit and a large pan of water was boiling in it with a dozen eggs.

OMG! We were gonna cooking outside and it looked to be a whole day plan. Frankly we had never done such a thing all by ourselves without parental supervision. Utensils and bags of ration appeared from nowhere in our camp and we were set up for the whole day. 

Just as we finished toasting the last of the bread, my cousin arrived at the site, panting white remains of toothpaste around his lips indicating a rushed morning ritual. He got the first plate of buttered toast and egg with steaming warm milk. We were on!

Since there was only one stove, there was no parallel processing. After breakfast we stood around the warm stove and waited for some milk tea to come our way. While waiting for the tea, we brainstormed the menu. My sister was planning a feast for us. For lunch she had planned for Daal ( Lentils) , Egg curry, and fried potato wedges. For evening snack we were to eat eggplant fritters and tea. 

The day slowly heated up, layers of our jackets and sweater piled up on the picnic mat. My sister had many little helping hands to peel potato, peel eggs, pound ginger and garlic. Apart from my cousin and I, the girls Purnima and Anima from our outhouse where there as well, my brother was busy keeping the dogs away from the food, one of my school friends was also there to help and eat. 

Adults were not allowed to be there, but they were very interested to see what was happening. Only mother was allowed to come and see how the food was progressing. In between we stepped away for a game of garden cricket with Grandpa as a umpire. 

Lunch was ready by late afternoon, we lined up crossed legged plates on the ground. My sister picked up the large pans of food and served us steaming hot rice on our plates followed by the rest. Thanks to the hot rice as everything else was as cold as a block of ice.

I don't remember who but we had a unexpected visitor and the count of eggs in the curry went down by one. We all looked around not wanting to share our portions. It was the girls from the out house who were the kind ones to share half of their eggs with the visitor. God bless them.

The adults enjoyed a long lunch indoors without the screaming children and food fights. That day I became a big fan of my sister. She chaperoned approximately six children of different ages for the whole day, delegated work effectively and kept us in peace and harmony.....no food fights. With full bellies we rolled about the picnic mats with a mini contest of spitting Orange pipsqueaks farthest away and talking about the exciting meal. The eggplant fritters were fried while we watched the sun turn into a orang ball towards the horizon, tea time rolled in quick, I do remember the eggplant fritter was raw at many places but who cared. 

We gathered around the stove for the last round of tea and packed up. The day was over, how I wished it lasted forever. We never repeated that sort of a picnic till years after, may be that is why it remained etched in my mind for a long time. 

Lots of happy memories of grubby faces, bundles of colorful sweaters and jackets running about, expression of ahhh and ooooo when the food got served as if there were jewels on our plates. 

Good times.