Saying Goodbye with Gulab Jamuns

My father returned home from work one day with a large box of gulab jamuns in his briefcase. I had never seen so many in a box before, let alone inside a briefcase, like ransom money. 

This was unusual. Usually, he brought oranges purchased from a roadside hawker outside his office building. When he arrived home, my brother and I would open his briefcase excitedly, and a jumble of office papers and oranges would spill out.  

But oranges are no competition for gulab jamuns. My mother made them at home occasionally using a ready mix powder, just like all the aunties I knew. Gulab jams, we called them lovingly. Following instructions on the box, she kneaded the powder with milk into a smooth dough, formed it into balls, which were deep fried, and then dunked into hot, cardamom flavored sugar syrup, in which they soaked for as long as our patience lasted. We ate many in a sitting, the syrup dribbling down the sides of our bowls, as we indulged in a special sort of gluttony reserved for sweets. 

But the gulab jamuns that came home in my father’s briefcase were unlike any other. They were perfectly brown and perfectly round. They had a gentle but unmistakable scent of rose water, exotic to my South Indian taste buds. They were less mushy than those we were accustomed to, offering some resistance against my spoon, but they melted in my mouth. They were syrupy bites of heaven. 

Much later, I found out that gulab jamuns are traditionally made using khoya, milk reduced to solids, requiring hours of patient stirring on a steady low heat. That explained the difference between the gulab jamuns I had grown up on, and the real deal. 

As I got older, I discovered, happily, that no Delhi wedding is complete without gulab jamuns. The beginning of winter, in November and December, is the peak of the wedding season. By that time of year, summer has long receded, and the worst of the winter is yet to come. In that twilight zone between seasons, gulab jamuns are served hot, nestled in bowls with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Heat and ice in one delicious bite. 

It was a colleague who sent the gulab jamuns for us, said Papa. Not a man he was particularly close to, just someone who thought we children might enjoy a large box of sweets.  

I never ended up meeting the man. But when I bite into a really good gulab jam, I think of him, and the beauty of small yet thoughtful gestures. 

So, to put it simply, gulab jamuns have always had a special place in my heart. And so that is how we chose to say goodbye to 2020 - with gulab jamuns. I reserved my energy for other things and decided to just order them from the Indian store. They only survived three days in our house, but they brought us a whole lot of joy. If there's one thing I have learned from 2020, it is to look for joy in small things. 

Happy new year, everyone. As one of my friends said, let's hope the year ahead will be a kinder one.