The special thing about shelled peanuts



So the husband came home with a bag of these. 

N looked at it curiously. ‘What is this’, she asked? 
‘Mungphali’ (peanuts), said I. 

It rang no bell for her. 

‘So how do you eat these?’ she asked giving the shell a lick and finding no flavour at all. 
‘That's the shell, silly,’ said I, 'you're supposed to crack it open, like this, I demonstrated.
Tentatively, she followed and then jumped with excitement .. Ooh this has peanuts inside it, she said, like she'd met an age-old friend. She does love peanuts.

That made me laugh.

And yet it made me wonder at how unaware H and N were about simple things like unshelled peanuts. You know what’s even more interesting? They’ve seen pictures in their science books but cannot connect it with the real thing even when they see it. How strange is that!

When we were young it was ‘normal’ to have to shell peanuts. In fact during the winters it was quite a tradition. We’d sit in a circle  all bundled up against the cold, monkey caps or shawls pulled up over our heads, with a big tray of peanuts in the middle. We’d shell and eat them with coarsely ground garlic-chili-coriander chutney. And it was the the most delicious thing on earth. Over anecdotes and stories and age-old family jokes time would simply fly.

If we happened to be sitting around a fire we’d occasionally throw the shells into it and watch as they flared up and burned out in an instance. Such a thrill that was!

Sometimes my grandmother would shell some peanuts and fold my fist quietly over them. That tiny fistful of shelled peanuts made me feel the most special person on earth.

Now my kids take it all for granted. They might be getting their peanuts shelled, salted and ready to eat but there’s nothing special about them anymore.

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