Milwaukee Masala

How anniversaries, national holidays, and teenage chaos collide across two continents. Anniversary circled. PTO denied. Laundry wins. Any time an Indian learns the date of my wedding anniversary, there’s a pause. Then a smirk. “Ohhh… poor guy. Lost his independence forever.” Cue my eye roll. Everyone sympathizes with the groom.  A nd me? I’m just the extra in this rom-com called life, clutching a wilted rose. The truth is, in our family, anniversaries don’t just mark romance—they come stamped with historical significance. Stick with me—there’s a surprising logic to it all. From dinner cruises and hot air balloons to a single rose grabbed on the way home with a quick,  “Happy Anniversary, I guess” —after a quarter century, I’ll take it. Especially in a family where anniversary dates are picked not just for sentiment, but for their spot on the national calendar. My parents got married on January 26—India’s Republic Day. Patriotic. Poetic. Comes with a guaranteed parade and a pub...

 For Shejo Kaka Some uncles buy you toys. Mine smuggled me into theaters with leaky roofs, slipped me warm biscuits off conveyor belts, and re-routed grocery runs into full-blown snack pilgrimages. A few short months ago, he passed away. This is my tribute—part love letter, part food tour, part mischievous field guide. My Shejo Kaka didn’t just take me places. He revealed them. (For the uninitiated: Shejo Kaka was my father’s younger brother—the third of four sons. But no family chart could capture what he truly meant to me.) He opened doors into secret worlds. Picture a Bengali Willy Wonka—not in a purple coat, but in a soft white kurta, eyes twinkling, with a look that said, "Let’s make some trouble." And trouble? He understood it intimately—from both sides. He was, shall we say, an early adopter of creative asset management. Imagine a schoolboy in rural Bengal, cash-strapped, needing some pocket money... maybe for a kite or a mutton cutlet. There’s a big drum of rice in th...