Toronto Diary- The Dinner

It seems that this is a season of parties. Before one party is over, we find that another is piled up in the row. Most of them have half a dozen guests. Sometimes even more. However, it was a quiet, sedate dinner. There were three guests only. A couple-- Dina and her husband Ken. And Dominique, our next door neighbour. Dina is a senior business executive in a computer company -- Dell, to be precise. Ken is in the pharmaceutical sector. Dominique is a senior officer in a company that handles bankruptcy cases in Canada and the U.S. 

Dominique arrived right on dot. The time was fixed at 7: 30 p.m. Dina and Ken stepped in a few moments later. Punctuality is important here. Even if it is in the matters of informal gatherings like this one. The guests were cordially welcomed. Ken held a bottle of wine and a bouquet, colourful and fragrant, in his hands.. Suddenly, I was reminded of an old Indian custom: In good old days, whenever a guest visited a relatives' house, he would invariably come clutching a 'lifafa' containing a dozen bananas or some other seasonal fruit. It was a custom suggesting courtesy and affection for the host and his family. I wonder whether these gestures are universal in nature and represent certain inborn civilisational processes in all cultures of the world.

Greetings over, all of us settled in the comfy sofas. Bhanu introduced us to guests. They too enquired about us. About our stay in Canada, our native country and,of course,our profession. Soon snacks and drinks arrived. Comfortably settled, we all indulged in small talk: weather,traffic rules, socio- economic structures of Canada, India and other countries. 

During the course of conversation,I told them that today as I stood soaking whiffs of fresh oxygen in old lungs at my room's balcony, I found a traffic police van parked on the road below. A traffic policeman alighted from it with some coloured slips in hand,and if he sighted any car wrongly parked, he slipped the slip under the windscreen wiper. He,then, knelt to look at the wheels of some cars. I felt intrigued, but could not find time to ask Bhanu or Anshul about it. So,I tossed the question to the guests. Ken informed me that the cop was checking if the vehicle had been parked at that place for more than three hours-- the time permissible. On my further probing about how the cop could ascertain whether the vehicle had overstayed, his answer was that the cop would put a mark with a chalk on a wheel and if the position of the mark on the wheel did not change when he visited the place again,say after three hours,it clearly indicated that the vehicle had not moved,had overstayed and was eligible for challan. 

I was scandalised. I told them about our desi system wherein we could park our vehicles anywhere, even in the middle of the road.And without an iota of fear for a challan.Now it was their turn to be scandalised. Thus,we talked on till there was a call for dinner. 

The scene shifts to the dining table now. The word' dining' suddenly rings a bell in my mind. I am reminded of the Gymkhana Club in Panchkulla, a part of the tri- city of Chandigarh. The club is patronised by the highest echelons of bureaucracy in Haryana, with, if I correctly remember, the Chief Secretary as its presiding deity. I had the occasion to go for a dinner with a friend there.On the door of the dining hall were inscribed the words in bold capitals : DINNING HALL . As a student of English language and literature, I felt rather scandalised at the spellings,until the friend I was accompanying soothed my frayed nerves. "It is alright, dost," he said," this hall is meant for DINNING. You will find a lot of people talking loudly and thumping one another's back. So, don't you mind , my dear angrezi master ji! " The point was well- taken! 

The table was set. Rice, daal -- lentil soup-- as our guests called it, mixed vegetables , almost without spices and very little salt. Chutney too. Some non-veg dishes for the guests too. We had settled now for a leisurely dinner. Talked of this and that. Then the conversation drifted to nationalities. Dina informed us that she belonged to Russia, Siberia,to be more precise. She also nostalgically recollected that her parents were farmers. She also recalled how she hated planting and cultivating potatoes, tomatoes, radishes, and turnips . She also told us about her determination not to step in her farm for growing potatoes whenever she got her first salary cheque. 

This triggered a flood of memories in Ken,her husband. Taking a sip at his wine glass, he reminisced about his origins in Germany; his grand parents migrated to Canada from Germany immediately after World War 1. His grand father worked in a synagogue. He was born in Canada and since then he has been living here happily. Answering my rather too many queries, he spoke about the customs of the country of his ancestor's origin lovingly and with unusual warmth.He was ecstatic while he talked of his grandmother who was illiterate, yet wise.

Dominique remembered Italy, the land of his ancestors. His father had long ago migrated to Canada from there. Dominique too was born in Canada; before shifting to the neighbourhood, he lived with his parents in Markham. After they passed away, selling his family home, he came to live as next -door neighbour to Bhanu. A really jovial man, he gave a broad smile when I suggested if he had some mafia connection in Italy. During the course of conversation, I learnt that he had been in the company he served for the last forty years . Rather uncommon, I said , keeping in view the volatility of the modern generation to shift 'the toy shop' of their heart in matters related to both love and jobs. 

Talking more and eating less, we were all meandering in our own worlds 'mixing memory with desire', as T.S. Eliot would term it. We talked of India , Pakistan and so many other regions of the world,when suddenly Dina made a very significant remark. She said that, in fact, they were all the off- springs of intermingling of different races and equally different nationalities. Born in different lands, of parents belonging to different races and religions,they felt that had the same umbilical cord, and thus were CONNECTED by a universal force. She said that her father was a Siberian,while mother belonged to Poland.This statement came in the context of Russia- Ukraine conflict . She felt that in spite of the political strife, there was an unseen emotional linguistic and cultural bond between the people of the two countries. Ken, her husband, had also a similar tale to tell.While his father was a German, his mother belonged to Austria.Men and women from different continents come up together to join in marriage. This is a different world altogether. Inter- racial and international connections exist here seamlessly. No questions of caste or creed. Only the joining of hearts leading to the creation of a nest to live in a world of love and joy.This brought to my mind the linguistic and cultural bonds we have with the people of Pakistan,in spite of our political animosity. I was also reminded of ' The Shadow Lines',one of my favourite novels, in which Amitav Ghosh, the author, talks of the artificial borders nations create for political reasons. He calls them " shadow lines" as they are not real. When hearts join, no artificial border can ever exist . 

Dinner over, Anshul served a delicious cake as dessert . Sweetness lingered not only in our mouths, but in hearts too.It was a rare opportunity for me to interact with people belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds and nationalities.A kind of cosmopolitan world in a capsule form, a microcosmic world of some sort. A synthesis of different hues, a symphony in which different notes were synthesised in a seamless, effortless manner. 

Nobody wanted to rise from the table, but the cruel hands of the clock struck like a dagger . Dina said she had to go to her office at six in the morning. Same was true of Dominique. Reluctantly we rose. The guests departed with big smiles on their faces and profuse thanks for us all. But before they parted,Anshul handed them some food packets which they could use in their breakfast. 

This beautiful dinner evening I will cherish for long,not only for the delicious food and very beautiful company, but also for the fact that it made me sit in my chair and put my thinking hat on and wishfully think about a time when, we Indians too would shed our mental blinkers and open our eyes to have a peep at the rainbow world that exists not too far away from our own narrow world. The question that kept on lingering in my mind my last night was: when will this" new dawn" illuminate our dark world? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔