Nightgowns kill taste-of-home glow

It felt very much like being home this Wednesday; like being in faraway India. A hot (albeit comparatively benevolent) sun had been beating down all day. The asphalt glittered in the glare. A strong warm breeze raced through leafy avenues, knocking planters over and blowing the lids off litter bins lined up along the kerbs for garbage collection day. The wind wrestled stray bits of garbage out of the bins, dry leaves and clumps of mowed grass out of yard waste bags and tossed them around the streets.

Coming after a long stretch of a gray, wet spring, this was all very welcome. Smiles were back on the faces of passers-by, as was a leisurely gait, replacing the tight, crumpled expressions and urgent pace of walking through frigid air. Ah, it was nice. And it reminded me so much of home.

The icing on the cake of the uninterrupted Indian experience was dinner at China Cottage. Don't be misled by the name. China Cottage is as Chinese as paneer pakora. This is a Hakka Chinese chain of restaurants, as far removed from authentic Chinese cuisine as India's ubiquitous chicken manchurian. The pictures on the walls include the Taj Mahal. Hindi film songs from the 1950s and 1960s waft through the air. The clientele is almost entirely South Asian. And sickly-sweet, congealed sweet-and-sour dishes fly out of the kitchen faster than you can say bhel puri.

So there we were sitting back, letting this overwhelming feel and taste of home wash over us when in walked another Indian family and immediately our nostalgic trip came to a dramatic screeching halt, wheels throwing off sparks. The party in question consisted of a baby in a portable car seat, her mother, her father and the two grand moms. It was all very casual. The young couple wore tees and slacks, and their moms nightgowns. Yes, NIGHTGOWNS. For dinner at a restaurant.

The vision transported us right back to middle class New Delhi where auntyjis and matajis come out for their evening strolls in their billowing cotton nightgowns in gawdy prints. The only difference was the matajis at China Cottage in Toronto had shed the sheath of modesty that is the dupatta, casually draped over ample, sagging bosoms in New Delhi.

The spectacle immediately pushed our Indian high from a healthy dose to a potentially lethal overdose. We'd had enough of a taste of home. Thanks, matajis, for killing the afterglow.