In the Choudhury house, there's never been a day where we haven't dropped or lost something. It's either the remote or the cookie jar, and even though my brother's the one who actually steals it, the blames always on me. We actually keep a count going at home - it’s called the Phelunthi ranking. In my mother tongue, Bangla, “phelunthi” is our family nickname for the clumsy. No kidding, there are so many things that either crash or drop a day that the numbers would skyrocket right out of the roof. Even those ridiculously, unimaginably and amazingly poised church toll towers.
Lately, I’m the number one phelunthi, although I can swear my brother's got way higher numbers, only he’d never be able to uncover them to us. Just now, I was dunking my chocolate chip cookie in my tea, when of all things, I dropped it. Now here’s a story- in my grandparents’ house back in Kolkata, we always had a spoon at hand when I was drinking my tea, and especially when there was a biscuit in sight. I was prone to drop at least one, and the sugar spoon always turned into the “dunker’s spoon,” until my grandmother simply couldn’t bear it and we all decided it was best if there was one at hand. I guess I agree, but I’d love to see my family dashing around, their feet darting as fast as possible. Of course, that running never helped, since it was often at the last minute that they caught the biscuit.
When we flew aboard that plane to London, the “dunker’s spoon” started to fade. It's really ironic, since England is where all the posh tea business is about. Honestly, we never had time anymore for it, and that only grew in America. It was a comical surprise when my dad looked up from his tea and said, “Oh, why, why, do you have to dunk? I wish the dunker’s spoon was here.” There was a twinkle in his eye, but all the same, I spent the rest of my tea cautiously gripping my cookies, and making sure no capricious chunks broke off. I never really got the dunker’s spoon, but honestly, there’s probably nothing better than your hands. Your hands just might be downgraded by the gawking mess they can create, but it’s what our ancestors lived with, and lived for.
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