When Stories Drop In

What Sunday Lunch Taught Me About Writing

I used to think my mother was terrible at meal planning. Every Sunday, she'd cook enough rajma chawal for maybe four people, then somehow manage to feed eight (and no, ‘rajma chawal’ isn’t ‘curry’. Every Indian dish is not a curry and there’s a post coming soon about this pet peeve of mine). The extra guests weren't invited - they just appeared, like characters in a story you hadn't planned to write.

"Your cousin's here," she'd announce, as if this explained the sudden appearance of someone I hadn't seen in months. "And he brought his friend from work." Two more plates would materialise. The rajma would stretch. Another story would begin at our table, mid-sentence, picking up threads from conversations that had started weeks ago in completely different kitchens.

Now I live somewhere people actually plan their Sunday lunches. They send texts on Wednesday asking if you're free. They calculate portions. They know exactly how many roast potatoes to make because they know exactly who's coming. Revolutionary stuff.

The Accidental Workshop

What I didn't realise then was that those chaotic Sunday tables were teaching me how to write. Not through lectures about plot structure or character development, but through pure immersion in the art of letting stories unfold.

Take my uncle's friend - let's call him Mr.Sharma because every Indian story needs at least one Sharma (Remember Bridgerton, season 2?) So, Sharma uncle would arrive mid-afternoon with sweets from some shop we'd never heard of, settle into a chair like he'd been invited three weeks ago, and launch into whatever was troubling him. Usually work. Always complicated.

But here's the thing about Sharma uncle’s stories: they never started at the beginning. He'd begin with Tuesday's argument with his boss, then loop back to explain why Monday's meeting had gone wrong, which required context about last month's project disaster, which naturally led to his theory about why the entire company was doomed.

Linear storytelling? Never heard of it. Sharma uncle’s narratives sprawled across time zones, connecting dots I couldn't see until suddenly, three cups of tea later, everything clicked into place. The Tuesday argument wasn't really about the quarterly report - it was about respect, authority, the slow erosion of workplace dignity. The man was writing short stories disguised as complaints.

The Different Grammar of Planned Stories

British Sunday lunches operate on completely different narrative rules. Stories have clear entry points. Someone will say, ‘Something interesting happened at work this week,’ and you know exactly what you're getting: beginning, middle, end, probably a lesson learned.

My friend Sarah tells the most beautifully constructed dinner party anecdotes. Last month she told us about a disastrous client meeting, and it was perfectly paced – the setup, the mounting tension, the moment of crisis, the resolution. I sat there admiring the craft of it. Every detail earned its place. No tangents. No secondary characters wandering in to complicate things.

It was storytelling as architecture rather than archaeology. Planned rather than excavated.

The Writer's Inheritance

Both traditions left their mark on how I approach a blank page. From those Sunday kitchens, I learned that sometimes the best stories emerge when you don't force them into predetermined shapes. Start cooking for four, see who shows up. Begin with one character's problem, let other voices interrupt and complicate things.

My first story was pure rajma chawal storytelling - characters kept appearing without invitation, subplots multiplied beyond my control, timelines folded back on themselves. My creative writing teacher, bless her, spent months helping me figure out which voices actually belonged in the story and which were just literary gate-crashers.

But from British Sunday tables, I learned the pleasure of stories that know where they're going. The satisfaction of well-timed revelations. The trust you build with readers when they can sense a steady hand guiding the narrative.

The Magazine Problem

Here's where things get interesting for writers. Most publications want the Sarah version of storytelling – clean, purposeful, every paragraph earning its keep. Editors love narratives that know their destination and take the most efficient route to get there.

But readers? Readers are more forgiving of the Sharma uncle approach. They'll follow you down rabbit holes if the company's good. They don't mind when you start in the middle and work backwards, or when minor characters steal scenes they weren't supposed to be in.

The challenge is learning when to use which approach. Blog posts and columns usually need the planned Sunday structure - clear thesis, supporting evidence, satisfying conclusion. But memoir, literary fiction, even creative nonfiction can often benefit from the drop-in Sunday chaos - the willingness to let stories wander where they want to go.

The Craft of Interruption

One thing those unplanned Sunday lunches taught me that no writing workshop ever did: how to handle interruptions gracefully. When you're trying to tell a story and someone's aunt arrives with her own story that's somehow connected to yours, you learn to weave narratives together rather than defending your original plot.

In my writing, this translates to letting research take me in unexpected directions, allowing characters to surprise me, being open to the essay that wants to become a story or the story that wants to become something else entirely.

This post started as an article about Sunday lunches in Mumbai and London. Three drafts in, it has become this. The Sunday lunch is still there, but it’s no longer the main character. I've learned to trust the story/post (in this case) to know better than I do where it needs to go.

The Publishing Calendar vs. The Creative Calendar

Traditional publishing runs on the planned Sunday model. Submission deadlines, publication schedules, marketing campaigns timed to coincide with book launches. Everything in its proper place, happening when it's supposed to happen.

But creative work often follows the drop-in Sunday pattern. Ideas arrive unannounced. Inspiration doesn't respect your editorial calendar. The story you planned to write next gets interrupted by the story that demands to be written now.

I've learned to maintain two different calendars – the professional one that keeps track of deadlines and commitments, and the private one that stays open for whatever wants to show up. Most weeks, they coexist peacefully. Some weeks, they're in complete conflict, and I have to choose between honouring my obligations and following the story that's tugging at my sleeve.

The Reader's Appetite

What's curious is how differently readers respond to these two approaches. The planned Sunday story satisfies in the way a well-cooked meal does - you finish feeling nourished, complete, ready to move on to other things.

The drop-in Sunday story creates a different kind of satisfaction. You finish wanting more - not because you weren't fed enough, but because the experience felt alive, unpredictable. These are the books you recommend to friends not because they're perfect, but because they're memorable.

Both have their place. Some days you want the literary equivalent of a perfectly timed roast beef dinner. Other days you want the sprawling, generous chaos of too many stories happening at once.

The Hybrid Sunday

Now I write with one foot in each world. Monday mornings, I sit down with my neat little outline, feeling very British about my planned productivity. By Friday, I'm chasing some random detail that caught my attention - why did I write about hummus? Was it because I was making my own hummus at that time? Would olive-oil types worked better?

Last week I was writing my folk-horror series (yes, it will be shared, soon!) and went into a rabbit hole about the common hill myna. She wasn't even relevant to my piece. Or maybe she was the whole point - I still don't know.

My documents folder is a graveyard of half-finished pieces that got hijacked by better ideas. Stories that started as one thing, became another thing, then died when a third thing showed up demanding attention. My mother would understand this completely. She never threw away leftovers either, just kept adding to the pot until something edible emerged.

The weird part is that my messiest pieces - the ones that refuse to behave, that insist on including voices I never invited – those are the ones people remember. The tidy, well-behaved articles get published and forgotten. The sprawling, slightly chaotic ones get forwarded, quoted, argued with.

Maybe there's something to be said for cooking extra rajma, just in case.