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Maosi laia – these two small words could pull me out of slumber, retrieve me from the depths of my beloved siesta and have me instantly join the cacophony of voices hollering down the corridors of my father’s home at any given moment.

It was Chinese New Year, 1982. I was all of eight years old, growing up in a large house in south Kolkata, surrounded by tottering grandparents and their friends, a bevy of middle-aged aunts and uncles and a sea of chattering children, siblings, cousins and cousins twice removed, and some new faces who I suspect, just waltzed in to join the frenzy, because our front door was always open. For three days every year, the house was buzzing and we, seven siblings in all, were allowed to miss school because the family must be present to welcome good fortune – and the ‘maosi’. For weeks before, new clothes would be tailored, aangpaos (little red paper envelopes with money) would be wrapped, snacks would be prepared, every little speck of dust would be banished, red paper decorations would be strung, images of our ancestors would be polished, firecrackers would be piled up and the refrigerator would be bursting at its hinges.

And yet, somehow, when the day finally arrived, the excitement seemed all too much for little me. I missed my friends at school,........

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