Silver Anniversary
Our wedding was perhaps unique, in that his family did everything proper, and invited everyone they could - the larger clan of cousins and in laws, neighbours with children and grandchildren, colleagues of intimate family and so on. That was on their part. I still perhaps might not know some of them without a reintroduction "were at the wedding", and then too not for long.
But the unique part was, they weren't hosted by the bride's family, as would be traditional. Instead they had offered to invite anyone I asked and had asked me how many cards I needed. I had on the contrary tried to invite perhaps only a couple of acquaintances, that too those not close to any relatives. Relatives, without exception, were not informed before the event.
After my mother had gone, there were no heartstrings left connected. The relatives had seen to that. So I arrived with him, the two of us from the institute we had met at, the day before the wedding.
When later anyone asked me who was at the wedding from my side, I said, the bridegroom of course, he was on my side.
This is a quarter of a century later, and any efforts to build bridges by pushing anyone's previous misbehaviour under the proverbial rug so to speak, have backfired with vengeance as a rule, with their taking it for granted that any meeting is for them an opportunity to kick, scratch and bite, scream and worse, that they may not find again - and so they have sealed the ttombstones of any possible future to contact with me, at least.
Him, most correspond with, for after all he is a he, to begin with, so he's expected to hit and doesn't. But the wife who neither is provoked into descending to their level nor will take it and smile with gratitude, but will point out that they misbehave, why the female must by kicked and whipped until she learns, for she didn't despite her own relatives abandoning her.
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So it isn't a surprise neither of us thought of public celebrations for our major events, and there weren't too many at that - but each had the sixtieth birthday, and his came this year with our silver jubilee following. And I wasn't sure he would free his busy schedule for the day, but he did, whether due to being reminded by a non committal query - "is it wednesday? What are you doing next Wednesday?", or he was planning to anyway, who knows? He takes as much pride in keeping mysterious as I take meticulous care about telling him everything that is not someone else's personal secret.
And some time a few days before, he casually told about a colleague and friend who had asked to plan a dinner for us.
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Morning was the routine of celebrations - dress up, visit the Ashram, lunch at Taj at their Chinese restaurant. They have stopped the buffet, so it was convenient not having to walk back and forth laden with plate, and relax with a spare lunch - he kept reminding there was a special dinner being planned - so we returned, rested a bit, and then it was dressing while he got nervous as usual about someone waiting. So far, it was wonderful, great, satisfactory, and quite good enough.
Neither of us had expected, it turns out, what unfolded as the evening proceeded. I had half wondered if he had planned a surprise with all relatives and friends, filmy style, but what came was far beyond unexpected.
His friend met us at the entrance to the hotel and led us to see various parts - restaurants, rooms, pool, lounge - before taking us to a space by the fountain in centre hall surrounded by lifts and topped by the ceiling several stories above, with several tables, where he sat us near the fountain that looked like a dark chocolate cake under a chocolate fondue, and informed us that the whole place was ours for the evening. He introduced us to various people - chef, maitre de, et al - and then proceeded to have one open a sparkling wine (Friscatelli?), after asking if that was ok.
After several minutes, it still wouldn't uncork. So they came and said, they were opening Champagne instead! What's more, it was the same champagne my roommate had brought to my graduation some thirty two years ago. And it was lovely.
Having poured the glasses, they left us alone, except for the unobtrusive waiters who poured whenever the glasses were low, or the next course ready.
And so began our very exclusive experience of a fairy tale romance unfolding through the dishes that were specially invented by this friend of his.
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The very first introduction took us on this trip that seemed more like travelling the Fairy Tale Route in Germany which we as a matter of fact hadn't travelled. He came and set before us each a dish that contained a small cup with clear, seemingly slightly sweet, liquid, with a cone of tiny rosy globules, that he said were time bound - we had to dip the cone into the liquid and pop it into mouth. The rosy vegetarian caviar was scented with Rose, and the liquid was Jasmine.
This, he said, was about a prince in a fairy tale woods coming across a beauty, the meeting so elusive, the fragrance was a bare whiff and gone.
And so began the Fairy Tale dinner for our silver jubilee .
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Next was even more unforgettable. They brought out what looked like a rich chocolate cake with a green forest floor on top, a bare tree in centre that seemed to have branches made of chocolate, with pink strips waving off the branches decorated with cloudy white. We were not sure if it was only decoration, or dessert already visible, but found the elves on the cake top under the tree enchanting.
Next came the mind blowing beginning.
We were set with two dishes that had unique, curved, rectangular pond shapes, with a beautiful young woman's face and flowing dark hair seemingly painted or otherwise part of the design of the dish, with her hair decorated with a stand of flowers that was our salad - it had tiny orange sections surrounded by salad ingredientss looking like tiny flowers, including beetroot looking and tasting like nothing we ever expected or could imagine. Much as we love the red sweet vegetable, in its boiled cubes simple salad, this was taking us off into another plane.
And then he told us, the painting is food. The young beautiful woman was part of the Fairy Tale dinner, not part of the china!
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The tree decorated with the red strips was next - he said it was filmy in indian style, that was her scarf stuck on the tree he finds - and it was parmesan strips, to be dipped in the grape jelly and another alternative dip he brought, delicious.
Then there was a course that was cottages in foggy forest, small potatoes and tiny mushrooms. It came surrounded by wheatgrass, which led us to talk of a favourite Indian sweet related to that.
I am forgetting a couple, each just as mindboggling as one before or after. It went on like this, the two of us left alone with our champagne glasses talking relaxed as perhaps rarely ever, with each part of the Fairy Tale dinner coming at unexpected intervals.
There were some ten courses or so, in all, probably not more! Each one was a surprise, a delight, brought memories, and it was always exotic.
There was a course with tiny ravioli, and as much as we loved ravioli, these were made without white flour. Our host had talked over our food fancies, likes and dislikes, and more importantly, diet restrictions old and new, with him, and these were reflected in everything he planned specially for us in this specially created menu. I had been put on a diet at the time that was without wheat, hence perhaps the surprise of the ravioli - or perhaps it was just for the fun of it!
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The next one - or was it before the ravioli? one forgets! - had tiny carrots served alongside, of all the loved things, asparagus. And the surprise was, this was white asparagus.
Normally that's the preferred variety in Europe, and it's considered an elite choice. But I had never found it anywhere near as good as the normal green variety that's full of life, succulent, fresh, and had instead generally found it fibrous and devoid of taste.
So much so, once when we ventured out on foot in Germany in balmier weather and found a stall close to the house that sold fresh produce, we had bought green asparagus, and when the vendor - probably the farmer - had ventured an opinion about white being better, I had countered it a bit vehemently.
In US one could find good green asparagus, but the fresh asparagus one got in spring in Germany was comparatively inexpensive, very tasty and full of flavour.
White, on the other hand, needs to have labour intensive farming, grown as it is below rows of mounds of earth tended by labour, which in north is usually from Poland, since they need the money, and can easily travel across border to work for the day. This as usual produced resentment in locals, who would rather not work for that amount.
So it was a surprise to find it served now, and it was unexpectedly lovely. What's more it was served with a mushroom sauce and truffle oil, completely delightful.
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Then began desserts.
First I think were tiny macaroons, not overly sweet either. But they were soon eclipsed.
One that was what looked like an igloo, set in centre, when opened, contained what looked like a brilliant blue sapphire ring set in a surrounding that was part of dessert courses - and the ring was dessert as well.
And if that was the high point of the Fairy Tale dinner, the descent was no less of surprise and delight.
They set before each of us a dish that looked like a coconut half accompanied by a small local banana, and we thought, a local touch, but are we eating a half coconut? In its shell? Turned out, the coconut shell was real, but the flesh was panacotta - and the banana similarly had rice content with the whole thing to be mixed and eaten together.
We wondered about that coconut through the ride home. How did they make it look so real? Yes, the shells were real, but the soft panacotta in such perfect shape sticking to it!
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I had had a fairy tale month in the land of fairy tales, a visit that happened to include my twenty fifth birthday, and that birthday was completely fairy tale, even with its simplicity of a home celebration with only the host family apart from me.
All these years, I told him, I never thought there would be another fairy tale celebration to come anywhere near that. This pretty much was close.
Perhaps twenty five is the magic number , he said.
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During the dinner, thrilled with the quality and the preparations, I had gone on suggesting he is way ahead of his colleagues in, say, Berkeley, San Francisco, et al, and ought to open restaurants in those cities, and too on Boston and Paris.
It was only when we were back home, changed and finally resting, that the midnight brilliance brought the fitting spot to mind – of course!
He should be doing this for the PM and the president, to do banquets for the visiting delegations and so forth, creating fantastic menus that would speak of India and of fairy tales, of their own lands and of silk route, of voyages about the world in ancient times and of the painstaking pilgrimages of the visitors from over the Himaalaya.
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