Growing up in Chembur, Lourdes Kanthirao remembers how she used to get the opportunity to gorge on Easter eggs every Easter Sunday when her aunty used to make them and get it for her family. She shares, “My grandmother used to make hand-breads and sweets. So, her children learned from her. My mother used to make the savoury dishes, but my aunty, who used to live in the vicinity, used to make the sweets for Christmas and Easter, and making Easter eggs was one of them.” As Kanthirao got older, she and her cousins would sit around the table and join her aunty to make Easter eggs for the day. “We used to start working on them by Maundy Thursday and they would be ready by Sunday. If we had to start any earlier, they would be all over by the time it was Easter,” she laughs. 

Since the 62-year-old’s brother is their aunty’s godchild, he got special treatment, as is tradition, in most families, and with that, even she got the spoils as she would also get the Easter treats. “I still have a vivid memory of receiving these cane baskets with a handle on them with these fawn-coloured Easter eggs; I don’t think you get the baskets anymore. I used to always wonder, ‘He is the godchild, how come I get the eggs too?’ So that memory has stayed with me. More than anything, I cherished the basket, which was in my showcase for a long time.” This very anecdote has also been passed down to her daughter, Rhea, when she first discovered the baskets.