THE same records have led the family back to Basti. But what’s a reunion without a feast? ‘‘Can we help?’’ asks Bebe Khan as she and her daughter Saforah follow the women to the chulha and Tiwari rattles off the menu.
‘‘Chawal, chicken, dal, matar, sewaiyan.’’
‘‘We have Indian food even at home in New York,’’ chips in Shazeda who has traded her western dress for a salwar-kameez for the trip.
The women bond around the chulha. Kaisar, the more confident among them, asks the guests about their life in New York.
Bebe Khan tells them that in New York she doesn’t drive a car but her daughters do. Kaisar then goes on to grumble over the strict discipline that Shaukat imposes on everyone in the family. ‘‘I know, he reminds me of an uncle back home. He is as strict,’’ consoles Bebe Khan.
The table is laid out. Shaukat had gone to Basti the day before to get mineral water for the guests. The menu had been carefully decided. The guests sit down to eat.
‘‘The food is spicy,’’ someone says. Tiwari translates. ‘‘I had told these people to use less of the red chillies,’’ Shaukat exclaims.
‘‘We don’t eat food as spicy but it tastes good,’’ explains Mohamed, ‘‘In New York, we eat food only once in a day. We were offered snacks when we reached and now it's lunch. It's already a lot of eating,’’ he smiles.
The dessert arrives: sewaiyan topped with dry fruits. The New Yorkers make a note to ask the women for the recipe.
The talk then shifts to the tamarind tree that has lived on the shifting territory of migration and memory. ‘‘It was cut down around 25 years ago. I’ll take you to where it once stood,’’ Shaukat tells the visitors.
They all troop to the house that stands where once stood the tamarind tree. ‘‘The tales of our past were like one big puzzle. Now things are falling in place,’’ says another granddaughter Shirin, who works as an assistant manager in a New York store.
From the house they walk on to the fields. Shaukat and his three brothers have six bigha between them. Several villagers follow them on their walk. After a while, they all head back home.
At home the guests take measurements of all the boys so that they can send them clothes from New York and hand over the gifts they have brought along. There is something for everyone: shawls, medicines, a sphygmomanometer, clothes and candy.
The one-day, one-night pilgrimage draws to an end. As they prepare for their journey back to New York, Mohamed Amzad says,
‘‘I might not get a chance to come here again but I think some of the children will come again.’’