MUMBAI / DIASPORA DATELINE – Advance Report, April 2026 – In approximately two weeks, the family will wake up early, move quietly around the kitchen, and attempt, for the 30th consecutive year, to give Mum a day she cannot argue with on Mother’s Day, 10th of May 2026. They will fail, lovingly, in all the right ways.
Here is how it will go.
It will begin with breakfast, because Sarah knows better than to show up empty handed. There will be boiled egg chilly fry – Mum’s own recipe, made by her daughter’s loving hands, which is the highest form of tribute. There will also be rose shaped cookies and heart cookies on the table, because Sarah believes the table should look like an occasion even if Mum insists it isn’t one. Mum will say it’s too much, but she will memorize the moment.
Abby will arrive a little later with dark chocolate coconut bites – not a gift, technically, just something she made, presented casually, as though she wasn’t thinking about it for two weeks. (She also took into account the fact that dad has diabetes and steals too many sweets, so it was needed to be something healthy pretending to be sweet. Dark chocolate bites won, but the other option was also dad’s favorite khajur barfi.)
Anyway, this is the system that works. Mum cannot argue with something that is “just a small thing.” She will eat one and say they’re very good and that Abby and Sarah shouldn’t have bothered.
Abby and Sarah will have bothered. They will bother again next year.
By midday the house will smell like roast chicken in a kadai and jeera rice, with dill hummus to start because ever since they visited Israel in 1997 and discovered hummus, there was no going back.
Ivo will make Dad’s kachumber salad – the one that has been Dad’s salad for as long as anyone can remember, now passed into Ivo’s capable hands. Dad, meanwhile, will station himself next to Abby at the counter and help cut the vegetables for the Russian salad, offering opinions on the size of the pieces that nobody asked for and everybody expected.
Someone will suggest going out for lunch. Mum will say no. She will say she prefers eating at home, with everyone together, at the same table. She will not understand why this requires explanation.
It doesn’t. She is right.
Dad will then open Abby’s homemade currant wine because he has decided the occasion calls for it, and because in forty-something years of marriage he has correctly identified that the best thing he can do is help with the cooking, the sit quietly in the living room while the rest of the food is readied, and start his infamous jokes once everyone reaches the living room. He also offers everyone a drink , which mom gets upset about – there are people in our family who don’t like drinking, you know. She’s not wrong about this, and he’s not wrong about this.
After lunch, just as the table is being cleared and the question of dessert is being debated, the phone will ring. Aaron and Soz calling from the UK – right on time, as always, just before the dessert comes out. The table will get louder. Someone will turn the phone sideways trying to fit everyone into the screen. Mum will tell them they didn’t need to call, but she will not put the phone down for twenty minutes.
For dessert, Abby is planning her mango cheesecake – she’s been planning it since March if we’re honest – though there is a contingency fruit custard on standby in case time runs short. Mum will say dessert is unnecessary. She will say this while accepting a tiny second helping.
Tea will be at five even though dad wakes up at four. There will be cake – light fruit cake or coconut cake, Mum’s choice, announced a day earlier as though the question is not already decided. Everyone will already be in the kitchen. This is how it works.
At some point during the day, someone will try to give mom a a gift. She will say she doesn’t want anything. They will give it anyway. She will say it’s too much, but she will keep it.
And then she will look around the table – at the food, at the people, at the small chaos of a family that loves her loudly and impractically – and she will say “this is all I wanted.”
She means it. She has always meant it.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mum. We already know you’ll say it’s too much. We’ll do it anyway.
Want to celebrate the mum in your life the way we do? Start with breakfast – boiled egg chilly fry – and take it from there.
I’m an East Indian foodie and travel blogger from Bombay, India. I love baking, cooking, and making wine at home. But I also love doing stuff around the house and spending time in the Word. You’ll find more info about me here!