But despite these dichotomies, there is one thing that I really like about my family. It is the fact that we always choose to have dinner together.

My mother is a working professional who leaves for work at 8 AM and comes back home late in the evening. My aunt, on the other hand, offers tuition classes to the nearby kids at our home in different batches. Then, there’s me who works a seven-hour shift five days a week. There are three of us at home with different schedules. We have breakfast and lunch at different times – as and when our schedule permits.

However, regardless of that, we choose to wait for each other and decide to have dinner together. We share the nothingness of our day over food. Sometimes it’s just my mother ranting about her day at work, or my aunt talking about something funny she saw in a TV serial, or just me talking about which friend of mine is back in the city.

Not all conversations are rosy. There have been days where I have cried at the table and have got up midway. There have been days we have argued at the table over differing opinions and the three of us ate our food in silence. It is these human moments that make me realize that my family isn’t perfect and nor am I. And that is okay. What matters is that we still choose to wait for each other at the end of the day.

But that is not to say that we don’t talk about profound things at the dinner table. It is during these conversations we also talk about politics and how the world around us is changing. For someone like me, who comes from a religious minority, these conversations have taught me to give a damn about politics – not because it is affecting me but because my indifference to the things that are happening around me is just not okay. It reminds me of my privilege, and sometimes even the lack of it.

A family that has dinner together might not come across as a big deal in an Indian setting that stresses a lot of quality family time. But here’s a fact. When you have three people in your house who are busy at their respective jobs throughout the day, it is quite possible that you don’t get to spend time together after work. You would want to come home and eat and just hit the bed because you are tired.

I have moved to a new city now and am living with a close friend of mine. We work at different jobs with different timelines. She packs her lunch when I am in the shower. I have my breakfast when she has left for work already. In spite of this, we wait for each other and have dinner together. Just like I did when I was home. Maybe this is an attempt by me to make this house feel like home. An attempt to create a warm space in an alien city.

Every family has its own unique traditions, and one of ours is to sit down and have dinner together every night. Although we may not always see eye to eye, we make a conscious effort to choose each other at the end of every day. I hope to carry forward this tradition if I decide to have a family of my own.