By Jagdesh Singh | Opinion |
It was always the same lament from my mother every evening as dusk descends. “Go shower lah before your father starts shouting again!” I would be sweaty, my clothes would be soiled from mud and grass after galavanting around the neighbourhood. We roamed around without an ounce of fear and paranoia that we parents have today when our kids decide to take the bicycle out. If it wasn’t being bicycle bandits, then it was a good game of barefooted football. I was always filthy when finally at the doorstep of my home while the azaan (Muslim call to prayer) rings around over the neighbourhood surau loudspeakers.
The law of the house, as set by my father, was that the whole family must be clean before dinner. And the overriding law was that the family must have dinner together, no matter what. So, if I wasn’t ready by 7.45 pm, I would get an earful from my mother first. She was the buffer before my father got downstairs, and he would not have any qualms of laying down the law for me in his own words.
We had a modest dining table in the middle of Mum’s domain, her kitchen. In this domain of hers, my father was merely a participant. We typically never had to wait for anyone in the family to be at the dining table for dinner because such was the law, loud and clear. You just had to be there for dinner on time, all showered and cleaned up.
Of course, it was always home cooked food. A luxury that we just can’t afford the precious time these days. I always complained about the lack of tastier food that I had imagined everyone else would have for dinner. “Why does it have to be Roti and Dhaal today?”, I would ungratefully ask, even though there were always a couple of other dishes laid before me. The existence of McDonald’s in this small town called Sungai Petani up north was but a dream, even though local TV had started playing their advertisements for years. Alas, the less glamorous KFC was for special occasions.
The conversations at the dining table were as vitally nutritional, if not more than the food my mother prepared. During my teenage years, right up to when I left for my tertiary studies in Penang, the conversations we had matured together with me. My father would talk about history, about our culture and our heritage, dishing out lessons about being a principled man, of growing up with a big heart. My parents would gossip openly about others that lived and breathed in this small town. Ironically, both would admonish me for asking more about who they were gossiping about. Many foundational bricks were laid during these dinner conversations, at the foundation of my character as a person, and as a young man.
Habits die hard. I’ve also become another version of my father, something that I loathe to admit to myself, and to my dear wife. Ever since being toddlers, we’ve tried our very best to have dinner together as one family.
Today, my daughters have reached that age where they have minds of their own, opinions on even heavier topics. During the pandemic, these conversations took place over lunch as well, enforced close proximity within the walls of our home being a good reason to. These conversations were leveraged as emotional support for all of us by all of us as we stared at so much uncertainty at that time.
My wife has also grown accustomed to cooking. As the variety of dishes grew from a couple to a handful, the conversations also matured. We gossip about others, even about their friends in school, with the youngest of 10 years struggling to follow. The older ones picked up talking in codes.
But we do struggle with two big challenges. The first is time. Each of us have packed schedules. I work at nights interacting with my American employers, while the girls have tuition classes, catching up with their studies. Dinner is always a dash on the weekdays and hardly together as a family unit.
When the flowering buds of the weekend appear on Friday evenings, my wife and I make sure we have everyone together for dinner. By then, she deserves the break from cooking all week. From her domain, we would venture to eat out depending on what our moods suggest. The conversations still thrive, sometimes we have emotional arguments as the older girls find their own voices and thoughts that don’t necessarily conform with ours. My wife and I take every opportunity to slide in instructions and lectures about their responsibilities as students, as daughters, as sisters, as friends and even as teammates. Quite often we get reactionary rolled eyes. But the conversations must go on.
The second challenge is so much easier to tackle. Gadgets. Our house rule: no gadgets during meals at the dining table. Working, for now.
My wife and I both realise that soon the number of seats at the dining table for dinner would decrease as the older girls begin their tertiary education. We’re running out of time, and have to really work hard to make sure we get as much time together at the dining table.
To sit for a meal. To talk about life. To listen, not hear, our voices as individuals and as family members. To learn from our experiences. All the while enjoying good food before us.
Jagdesh Singh, a Kuala Lumpur-based executive with a US multinational company, is a father of three girls who are as opinionated as their mother
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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