Mother

"I'm quitting", he shouted as he entered the house. He threw out his shoes and relieved his shoulders of the drudging laptop bag and quickly retired to his room and hit the bed.

"You seem too tired, why don't you have a quick dinner and go to bed."

"yes mom, but I'm sick of it, the same boring job, the same irritating people all around, same hectic travel everyday; how long to go on with this? I want to call it quits mom!"

"That's fine! For your intelligence, you will get 100 jobs. But now freshen up yourself and have your dinner!" Boys of today, she thought, how so quickly they get bored of everything. She went back in time. How much he rejoiced when he got this job on the day-1 of placement in his campus. He was literally jumping and dancing all around during the entire next week. Naturally, since only four of them got placed among the three hundred and odd people who sat through the selection grind. She was proud of his son.

As he came to the dinner table, she didn't want to bother him with the thoughts of his job and switched the subject to his favourite topic. 'Did you talk to her today?" she asked curiously.

"No mom, I was too tied up with work, didn't have a second to breathe."

Realising it's getting back to work, she kept silent.

As he was mechanically gulping down what was on his plate, he suddenly noticed that yummy-yummy ....... in the bowl next to his plate. The moment he saw his favourite dish, all the tiredness flew away and he kissed his mother on her cheek and asked "oh mom, you are great! But tell me what's special today?"

"Nothing, I just thought you'd love it. It has been a long time since you had this."

He was able to vividly recall the first time she prepared this dish for him.

He had told her of this dish when he returned from a party at his friend's house. They are from the northern most part of the country- Kashmir. When he returned home, he was gung-ho about their family and also about the culinary skills of his friend’s mom- Kashmere aunty. "I never had such a tasty dish mom, they call it ....".

After that, he forgot all about it. But on the day when he returned home so joyfully after the day-1 in his first job, his mother welcomed him home with this dish. He relished it so much- it tasted better than the one he earlier had. He was wondering how and when she learnt preparing this and how much trouble she must have taken to learn to prepare this. She brushed aside saying that nothing is too big for her when it's for her dear son.

"Oh, shit, how I forgot! I have completed one year today." he screamed. But something struck him very strongly about his mother and what he uttered about his job a few moments back - same boring job, the same irritating people. After that, he ate the rest of the food in silence and retired to bed.

His mother got up early the next morning, prepared his breakfast, but somehow didn’t dare to wake him up since she was not sure whether he had already quit. He came out of his room all dressed up to go and with very unusual cheer on his face, "mom, what's on breakfast? I have to rush now, it's time for our bus."

She thanked her god for answering her prayers.

Request to Readers: Can you suggest a delicacy of Kashmir to fill in the blank in the story above?