Tikka Masala Lunch

I went to lunch with my almost-not-a-teen-anymore son today. Indian food, our favorite. Bollywood videos played in the background. Group dancing and boy chasing girl story lines that stream in almost every Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. I love the colors and the passion.  The young man may still live at home, saving money, going to community college, but I don’t get these moments often enough so I’m soaking up my time with him, along with my chicken tikka masala sauce.

He tells me all about his friend’s breakup with the high school girlfriend, both of whom I know. I get the inside scoop about how within a week she was already “in love” with another guy from her wrestling team and had invited him to prom. Scandal! I hear about my son’s hysterical fake names for his best friend that he plans to use introducing him down in Cabo during the upcoming spring break. He tells me of the English Romantic poet John Keats and how he died in his twenties. “Imagine what he could have accomplished with his writing had he lived longer!” He tells me the Wollstonecraft, Shelley family history as we talk about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. That he gets into 19th century English and American writers is a quirk I love in him.  

Sure, he texts a bit to the heartbroken friend throughout lunch, but I don’t mind. It gives me moments to take in a few more moments from Bollywood.