Iftar at Rameez home

 Today's plan centers around Iftar at Rameez's home in Fremont. After lunch, we set out to Ikea, did some shopping of small items for my parents who are to return to India in a couple of days. 

  After Ikea, we did a nostalgia drive around our earlier Fremont home and school, and we reached his house at 7:13 PM , 2 minutes before ETA. 

   Fruits and glasses of juice were already on the teepoyee. We sat around in a sofa and waited for the sunset. 

Aadu had the responsibility of alloting Ifthar snacks in the plates. In a very methodological fashion he placed "Petti pathal" and "Kozhiyada" in the plates. When it was time, "banku vili" was played in the portable speakers, and the fast was broken with dates, orange halfs and juice.

The fast breaking had happened almost involuntarily as Rameez handed out the dates to everyone. As I was about to eat the prepared snacks, I found myself at a loss as I tried to find some coherence between Bajrangi and Empuraan and my very long time friend smiling at me from his sofa seat.

Once the fast was broken, it was time to enjoy Sayara's culinary skills with the traditional "Petti Pathal" and "Kozhiyada". Both were very tasty. I liked "Petti Pathal" better.


Then we had conversations between my dad and Rameez and me touching on various subjects like Basheer, Khasak, Odessa, Trump, LLM, college education for the kids. Sayara had meanwhile gone back to the kitchen for preparing the next meal course. 


Next up was Mandi rice and chicken. The rice was super tasty and had a very unique flavor to it that even pushed the chicken to the sidelines.  With Rameez and the three boys, Sayara already has plenty of stomachs to feed. Six of us had come over today.  On a fasting day, to put in all that work to prepare all the food, keep the house in order etc must have been very challenging.

Rafeez and Resha called Rameez on video call. I said a quick Hi as well. 

The star of the day is the dessert - "Unnakaya payasam". Pretty sure I have never heard or had this before. Very tasty, and met all the anticipation that had been set. I was already full and could not ask for extra serving. 



It was past eleven PM, and we had a long drive back. So we bade goodbyes and drove home. I was feeling a little delirious after all that food during the drive. 

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