The Banyan tree and other stories
Little things that tick the contentment meter!
As an Indian, I have grown up with the familiar sound of a pressure cooker whistling each morning. Sometimes, you would hear a lot of whistles at the same time or in the same hour - it would be your neighbours doing their cooking and their cookers whistling in sync with yours. So the sound of the whistling is not alien or discomforting to me.
I mean, if you are eating, delving into that piece of konkani masala marinated fish or mutton biryani, or peanut stuffed aubergines and someone asks, 'What do you think of the politics of caste?' or 'What do you think of the book you are reading?', how do you possibly answer that? I cannot answer questions like these without pausing, without letting the food go cold. If it were a question like - "What do you think of Trump?", I could have answered in a word, and we could have gone on with our meal.
The Banyan tree and other stories 