Managing food, festivals and emotions in a multi-diabetic home

“Ekta shorshe ilish hobey na dinner e?” (“Won’t we have mustard hilsa for dinner?” – This is my father, from the kitchen doorway. He’s 67, a proud Bengali, and a lifelong lover of all things oily, spicy, and carb-loaded.

Like me though, he’s also a type 2 diabetic.

So I sigh, “No, Baba, we’re having grilled fish and sautéed bottle gourd.”

There’s a pause before he reluctantly agrees – This is a daily negotiation in our Kolkata flat, the battle between our palates and pancreases.

A home full of diabetics

My father (67), my mother (65) and I are a rare trio – We’re all type 2 diabetics, living under one roof.

At first, it felt like a disaster:

• Who would cook?
• Who gets what medicine?
• Who’s in charge if everyone’s blood sugar crashes at the same time?

Over time though, it became something else – An accidental support group.

In our home, glucometers lie beside the TV remote, the fridge has a section for insulin pens, and birthdays are celebrated not with cake but with low-carb paneer.

Managing meal planning

In a traditional Bengali household food isn’t just fuel – It’s part of your identity.

And managing diabetes for us meant unlearning what we once considered love. No more luchi-alur dom (deep-fried poori with sweet potato curry) on Sunday mornings, and no more mishti doi (sweet curd) after Durga Puja bhog (ritual prayer to the goddess Durga).

Instead, everything is modified, measured and monitored. And I’ve become an expert in reinventing classic dishes – Think parboiled rice with extra vegetables, mustard-flavoured steamed fish, and almond-flour sandesh (a Bengali sweet traditionally made with sugar and milk) that my mother now proudly calls ‘diabetic delight’.

Meal planning is now a team effort. My mother handles breakfast and lunch, I handle dinner, and my father is in charge of complaining (and occasionally chopping bottle gourd).

Recognising the emotional toll

Some days, I resent having diabetes. I miss:

• eating without guilt.
• not having to explain my plate to relatives during weddings.
• being able to say yes to phuchka (a.k.a. golgappa) without first checking my blood sugar.

But the real weight is emotional – Watching my parents battle the same disease as me brings a pain I wasn’t prepared for.

My mother once had a hypoglycemic episode while I was at work. She called me in a panic, and I rushed home, my fingers trembling more than hers. Once home, I sat with her, feeding her glucose as tears streamed down her face (not from the sugar crash, but from guilt).

“You shouldn’t have to take care of us like this,” she whispered.

But how can I not?

Celebrating festivals without the feasts

Do you know how hard it is to celebrate a Bengali festival without food?

We’ve tried everything – Air-fried beguni (traditionally deep-fried eggplant), baked patishapta (soft crepes), sugar-free narus (a.k.a. khichdi)…

It’s not the same.

During Diwali last year, our relatives visited with boxes of kaju katli (a.k.a. cashew barfi) and laddoos. I politely accepted them and then put them out of sight. But my father snuck 2 into his pocket, and later that night I found him dizzy near the bathroom after his sugar spiked.

He later told me he hadn’t eaten them because of the sweets themselves. He’d eaten them out of grief – He just wanted to feel like everyone else.

Living with diabetes in a food-obsessed culture means you’re always close to the table but never quite at the feast.

Sharing discipline and frustration

We have good days. Days when:

• all 3 of us have normal sugar readings.
• we celebrate that my mother’s HbA1c has dropped.
• we walk together on the terrace, taking in the evening air, comfortable with our carbs and compassion for each other.

But there are hard days too. Days when:

• we snap at each other.
• someone’s blood sugar reading goes rogue, and dinner is tense.
• the air feels heavy with blame.

We’re not saints. We’re just 3 people trying to coexist with a stubborn disease.

What I’ve learned

Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from living in a household of diabetics:

1. You can love your culture, and still modify it – I still light 100 diyas during Diwali, but I also serve sugar-free sweets.
2. Support isn’t always perfect, but it’s powerful – When my father forgets his medicine, I remind him. And when I skip my walk, my mother scolds me.
3. In an Indian home, you don’t fight diabetes alone, you fight it in a team – Together, we manage kitchen debates, grocery runs, late-night sugar crashes, and the quiet moments when someone holds your hand and says, “Aaj thik hoye jabe,” (“Today will be okay,”).

Final thoughts – Our home, our rules

Our flat in Kolkata is small. But within these 4 walls, we’ve built a rhythm of resilience.

We live with diabetes, yes, but we also live with laughter, stubbornness, and a relentless desire to take care of one another.

In many ways, diabetes has forced us to slow down. To eat together, walk together, and heal together.

And in this chaos of food restrictions and fasting glucose levels, we’ve found something oddly beautiful – A shared strength that only those who count carbs together truly understand.