Birthday

I started writing this on 26th May

Yesterday was my mothers birthday. Due to a number of reasons, this years birthday was different. Oh wait, I just read a blog entry by Farhan, where there was a conversation between him and some Tipu bhai, which emphasized on the fact that one should not get too personal in online blogs, which can be viewed by complete strangers and or random people. I wonder what'd happen if my boss read a blog entry where I complained against her.

Well, I don't care anyway. I planned to get out of office early. Infact, I promised to myself that I'll be out of office by 6 PM. But no, it didn't happen. At around 18:11, I realized that I broke another promise made to myself. Someone wanted to launch something today, so we all had to execute the wish.

Finally, I got out of office at 7:30. I went to the new book store in Gulshan 2, the same place from where I got a Beatles movie. I wanted to buy a recipe book for mom. I looked for a while, and couldn't make up my mind. Then came a helpful saleswoman. At first, it felt weird to get that type of service. I guess our mindset is still "us versus them". It's like a sales person will only think about selling stuff, he/she won't do any good. And maybe it's logical, too.

Anyways, I spent a lot of time browsing through the somewhat huge collection of recipe books, and I tried to find out books where there will be a lot of unfamiliar food; which my mom hasn't cooked, or even thought about cooking. So I bought a book on mediterranian foods, and another one for "quick and creative cooking". I went through most of the recipes of the books, and my filter mechanism had these rules:

1. No crab/oyster/food with wine

2. No foods with ingredients which I haven't heard of/are not available in BD

3. Foods which my mom can cook already

She was actually happy, when I gave her the books, and she was even happier to see the mini cake (500 grams). But she kept on asking "how much did it cost? It must've costed you a fortune. ...there was not need, etc. etc." Eventually I told her the price (which wasn't too much). She insisted I change the books and get something more "not mediterranian". I said keep these, I'll get you more books on other topics.

My mom and dad can't accept gifts from me! Dad always says that "I should save", and mom says "How could I spend so much?">

This is such a difficult situation.

In the evening, we went to a local Chinese Restaurant and had a nice family get together. My 3 year old cousin (dad's yonger brother's elder child) plus four of us, mom, dad, sis and me went there at around 10 PM. The meal was nice. Much better than what I expected from a local restaurant. I once again realized the importance of "Choto poribar". The 3 year old was trying to play drums with the soup boul and sppon, and he also wanted to go to "ammu", and he also complained about the chicken having only two legs(!). Thank God my sister is older now!

I don't feel like writing about the departure :\