After my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and my younger sister’s 9th wedding anniversary, yesterday was another milestone: my older sister’s silver jubilee.

She was very excited, of course. She generally is.  To be honest, she’s the hyper-excited kind in our family, and she’s the one to get “goosebumps” on smallest of things. The whole “let’s take mom and dad to The Udupi for their golden jubilee celebration” was her idea. It is understandable that she wouldn’t forget her own.

But she was a bit too late in planning. On June 15, 2026, just before midnight, she texted me with her plans: send food for madarsa kids, and order chicken biryani for our family. Plan was good, execution was not possible. Who’ll take an order to make 15kg biryani THAT late?

So, we had to postpone.

The responsibility of coordinating with siblings fell on my very-able-but-perpecutally-aching shoulders. A party in the middle of the week is always a bit of a question mark because y’know, husbands are working so drop-home service isn’t readily available. The plan was they’d all come just for dinner.

Today, around 7:55 PM, I couldn’t take backache anymore and went to my room for some rest. A few minutes later, my aapi came. Any other day of get-together, she’s always the last one to come but today she was before-time because she was the host. I couldn’t get up from bed, so I stayed there. A few minute later, I went out. As we were just wondering why the food has not arrived yet, we heard a loud horn outside.

Yep.

Food.

So, I was still sitting in the living room. In came the pateela, and behind that my sister with both her daughters. Just as she removed her abaya, in walked my nephew and my other younger sister (jiski 9th anniversary huyi hai). The excitement went through the roof. It has almost never happened that everybody would arrive at the same time. It takes forever for my brothers-in-law to come for dinner, and we keep waiting. Within minutes, dastarkhwan was set, and dinner began: men and kids. Within one hour, dinner was done, just around 10 PM. This was the fastest in our family’s history. We generally sit down for dinner AFTER 10:30 PM.

It was a fun dinner. And getting to play with nephews and nieces in the middle of the work-week was just bonus. One more party is coming up soon, but more on that later.

Shabana Mukhtar