Just Like Home

A long table, blaring music, and deafening chatter,

15 on a couch for 6, reverberant laughter, and the same family stories being shared since time immemorial. 

Sometimes when we’re away for too long, we forget what home is. Home isn’t just walls, and furniture and a flat screen TV, neither is it a place you come to at the end of the day to sleep in an empty bedroom.  

Home is the people and the mayhem they bring. It’s those very long tables, lined with plates and bowls of steaming hot curries and rice and rotis. Just one little sniff of the behind-the-scenes in the kitchen, and you’re transported to your childhood and all the good memories. 

We express our love through food, whether it’s mangoes in the summertime or sweet potatoes in the winter. It’s the sweet and sour pickle in the corner of the plate, one finger-lick and the burst of nostalgia it brings overwhelms you with emotion. Especially when you’ve been away. 

The click and clank of the cutlery is like music to the ears, and the vibrancy of the yellow dals and green chutneys against the stark white background of the plate is a sight for sore eyes. In hindsight, home is not just the people. It’s the whole sensorial experience, starting from ma’s hugs right till those boring stories that we’ve now come to have a love-hate relationship with.

Molo Moments