Momo's by Shreya Thakur

Narrative:

Weekly calls with my grandparents I have now not seen in what seems like forever, I long for their calls and a sensation of their love through the screen. As the four members of my family gathers around the little phone screen, we get prompted with a question which seems almost impossible to answer:

“What was your most fond memory when you were here, home?” my grandma wonders. 

Neither my mom, dad, or my brother know what to say, there were an overwhelming amount of memories made there. I take the phone knowing exactly what to say, taking me back to when I was 4, on my grandpa's shoulders as he would carry me alongside my grandma to get our favorite street food, momos. This food cart attached to a rickshaw had a designated parked spot right next to our house and we were now frequent customers. I would listen as they made small talk with the worker. It would always end with being about a new accident on the poorly made road right outside our window view. 

“Did you hear the crash last night? I was making a new batch when a biker sped into a car” 

“We did, we actually knew the family in the car.. the ambulance didn’t show up for so long, the kid has a major concussion now with the rest of the family having injuries” my grandpa notes.

“The government needs to provide better roads, every week it's another sad story” 

Sorrow fills everyone's heart. Then the warmth of the steam of the dumpling and the aroma of the sauce brings a feeling of hope. Hoping for when we wouldn’t have to step out on the balcony for a breather and be faced to witness another tragedy. 

My grandma would bring freshly steamed momos back home to share and how she could effortlessly remake them if I was eager for more, still amazes me. 

As much as I tried to stay strong in front of a facetime, the tears started rolling. I longed for the feeling of all the family together. I wished that visiting them would be easier than it truly is. Though now it's been 6 years, 6 whole years without being with the rest of my family and not being able to grow older alongside them made me feel more isolated than ever. 

“When are you coming back? We can make those memories again” 

At this point, everyone had eyes full of tears. Not knowing the next time we would see them.

Later that week as I came back from school my mom had welcomed me to a set of ingredients set on the kitchen island. I wasn’t sure what these ingredients were even for.

“Here's to making your fondest memory again” 

As she said that I knew exactly what dinner held that night. As my mom made the filling for the dumplings she gathered all the grated vegetables in a bowl stirring them well. 

Meanwhile I helped put the filling into dumpling wrappers. Each having different enclosing folds. 

This brought me back to when I would walk into the kitchen and catch my grandparents folding the dumplings, I would ask for help and my grandpa would set me on the kitchen counter so I had more ease grabbing the filling. We would open the door to the balcony connected to the kitchen. My grandpa would say that doing so we were sharing the beautiful gift of the utter warmth in steam from the cooker.  

As we slowly ran out of wrappers, my mom started on the dipping spicy sauce which always brought tears to my eyes from the spice, but that wouldn’t stop me from filling my stomach to the rim with this meal. The sauce was constructed with what seemed like all and every possibly spicy ingredient in the house. 

As we put the dumpling into the steamer, and patiently waited for the loud hiss of the cooker as it released more steam, releasing the slight scent each time, making it even harder to be patient now. My mom suggests we call our grandparents as they had just woken up, I facetime and point towards the cooker and through their instant smiles I could tell this brought them joy. 

Even though I was not directly with my grandparents, knowing that having shared something that brought a sense of home and comfort, made up for it.  

Easily becoming a new fond memory.