My parents

As I wrote in the previous post, hubby and I had been to India during New Year holidays. We reached my parents’ home in Pune, India at about 2 pm on 1st January. It had been a long and tiring travel. But the tiredness was all gone on meeting my parents. Hubby and I were so happy to meet my parents. My family is a typical traditional Indian family. My mother is a homemaker and my father is a retired defense personnel. They are pretty conservative and simple. They instilled in me and my siblings the fact that education is an important asset. They are great pillars of strength in my life and are my biggest moral support. My parents, especially my mother, have the ability to stay calm under most difficult situations and always adopt a positive approach to life. My parents have always stood by me and have always supported me in my decisions. Thank you very much for everything and love you both Ma and Babu.

My parents

My mother loves cooking food and feeding people. So on reaching home, she served simple delicious Indian food to my hubby and me. Later she served several kinds of fruits like bananas, chiku, and apples to us. It was so cute to watch her feeding pieces of apples to my hubby. It was the first time that hubby tasted chiku fruit and he liked it very much.

My mother giving a piece of apple to my hubby

Hubby eating chiku

After lunch, we all relaxed and chatted for a few hours. In the evening, my elder brother and his family paid a surprise visit to my parents’ home. They stayed for a couple of days and it was fun chatting with everyone. We took a few of photos for the sake of memory.

My mother and I

My mother and hubby

My father and I

My father and hubby busy shaving

Hubby and I in Indian dress

My elder brother and hubby

A group photo of all the family members

Hubby and I were not expecting to meet my brother and his family during this trip to India. Therefore on seeing them, we were excited and chatted to our hearts’ content. But my mother got really busy as she had to cook food for seven people. So whenever possible, my bhabhi (brother’s wife) tried to help my mother to cook food. One of the days, hubby and I were chatting with my mother and bhabhi while they were busy cooking. Bhabhi was making roti (Indian bread) and hubby was amazed to see her make round roti which puffed up and turned into perfect sphere. Hubby did not know that roti is supposed to puff up as mine never does. Bhabhi taught me a few secrets of making puffed roti and hubby compiled a video of it.

My mother busy in the kitchen

A compiled video of puffing of roti

Most evenings we all went out for shopping and often returned home rather tired. Hubby usually visited a snack shop near our home and bought salted green chillies deep-fried in oil. He relished eating those chillies along with cold drinks. Hubby also ate two fruits guava and amla for the first time. He liked the taste of guava but was shocked by the extreme sourness of amla.

Hubby relishing deep-fried salted green chillies

Guava and amla fruits

Hubby eating a piece of guava

Every morning hubby used to look forward to the breakfast of Maggi noodles that my mother made especially for him. Maggi is a brand name of instant noodles that is very popular in India and the flavor is optimized for the Indian palate. My mother added various kinds of vegetables and a few spices and that made the noodles taste really delicious.

Colorful packet of Maggi noodles

My mother’s variation of Maggie noodles

Hubby happy with a bowl of noodles

Hubby slurping noodles

Another thing that my hubby looked forward to every morning was to see my mother offer prayers to various Hindu deities in the Puja (prayer) room. Although he did not understand much but was very much interested to see my mother perform various rituals while praying to the deities. He compiled a video of my mother praying to Hindu Gods.

Puja room

Hindu deities in Puja room

A compiled video of my mother praying to Hindu Gods

On most mornings, hubby accompanied my father to an old fashioned open air vegetable and fish market near our home. My parents prefer to buy vegetables every day as very fresh vegetables are available at this market. In fact, a new supermarket is also there near our home. But the vegetables at the supermarket cost almost double as compared to the open air market and are not that fresh. Since my hubby is very conscious of the price as well as the freshness of the vegetables, he preferred to go to the open air market. After returning home my father often helped in washing the vegetables and fishes, and mother got busy cooking. Once hubby helped in removing peas from peapods and ate almost half of the peas as they were very fresh and tasty! Every day we enjoyed eating various kinds of vegetable curry dishes, dal curries, fish curries, chicken curry, and many more dishes. Mother’s cooked food is simply delicious. We were so busy to eat food that we completely forgot to take photos of various dishes.

Various vegetables at a market place

Father helping in washing vegetables

Hubby removing peas from peapods

Mother and father in kitchen

Father having lunch

Mother having lunch

My elder brother and his family returned back to their home on the evening of 4th January. My parents, hubby, and I went to see them off at Pune Airport. While returning back home, we picked up a salwar-kameez dress from a tailor shop near our home. My bhabhi had presented me the piece of cloth for the dress. It was stitched so perfectly. Hubby took a photo of me in the Indian dress.

I am wearing salwar-kameez dress

We stayed two more days in Pune about which I will write in the next post.