After all these years, I understand the significance of these two memories.

***

1991. I am eighteen.

He motions his fingers in a way that means, “Hurry.” My father could not wait. His bare feet touch the gray pavement inside his aunt’s home in Boravali, India. When he enters the bungalow, the blue hammock greets him, and the smell of buttered nuts and saffron floats in the air. Even before he sets foot in the kitchen, the green halwa glimmers like a beacon of light inside the room where his aunt feels most at home.

Read the full version of this essay at  Daily Plate Of Crazy. Special thanks to Wolf for allowing me to write in her space. It is an honor.