Our Dining Table

It is a place of worship, my dining table - a befitting temple to the most tempting of the seven deadly sins, gluttony; a gallery filled with the most scrumptious works of art known to mankind; a table where sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and hot delicacies present themselves in all of their glory, garnished with exotic spices and flavoured by my mother’s expertise; a thread of connection between busy family members. It was built in a style no manufacturer of this generation would ever be able to replicate, with complicated structures made to hold the heavy ovular table top in place. The rich Malaysian wood has lost its shine over the years, some of it disintegrating slowly into dust. Leathered seats that were once the pride of our family have faded into a murky, unappealing brown shade, bringing upon a look of disgust from visitors. Its elliptical shape can cater to six full grown adults, but there have been times when I have seen it open its arms to accommodate more and more family members, never willing to abandon a strand of hair gone astray. Childish engravings and colourful drawings add to its beauty, sovereigns of the times numerous children have played in its lap and spit food on its elegant tabletop. In today’s world, where parents have no time for their children and children have no patience to handle their parents, our table brings us together, for that one meal at the end of the day, where problems are discussed, emotions are shared, and memories are made. Our dining table has helped me take my first step as a baby, put up with my frustrated bouts of teenage anger, and watched over me as I made my place in this world, as it has done for all my ancestors. Houses have changed, people have changed, and generations have passed, but our dining table has remained a time machine to transport me back into times long gone and often forgotten. Now it sits there, empty, waiting for the clock to strike two o’clock pm so that it may once more be filled with chattering voices and satisfied sighs.