With the scent of Ghee draped all over her clothes
she prepares my favourite and the lengthiest snack.
Her legs wobbling like the thinnest shoot of a newbie plant, you bet be gone in the next windstorm but it withstands the gambling words.
I want to have a pre-nurtured taste of her hand’s magic when I reach for ‘Mitthi Roti’ while she is busy with the next dough rolling into a perfect sphere in her deep palms.
But she slaps hard on my extending greed, the way you shoo away the paws of your spoiled pet that tries to grab the fattest pieces of anything before it’s prepared.
How did I forget she still excels in multitasking?
When I ask why this sugar cubes are bigger or has yarn threads coming out of it, she proudly explains it’s ‘misri’; much better than my cavity-inducing chocolates I keep popping up through my incessant anxious sessions.
And the other brown rock is ‘gurr’ that would cleanse my body and probably the skin when I don’t have to waste much on the fancy bottles of creamy substances that I keep putting on my face.
I pout and argue with my silliest face and arms tugging around her back to not to pick up on the things that I buy. She being 2x me, pouts harder and says “you would never know the value of natural substances.”
She abhors sugar crystals or anything that is saturated upto the level it loses its originality.
She detests any plastic covers of the stuff I order that claims ‘natural’ as she proclaims, anything that is genuine or real does not require a stamp on its forehead for others to believe.
While I munch on the first batch of Mitthi Roti; soft, sticky and a little cakey but with plump-y edges, I say it tastes somewhat like waffles and she narrows her brow saying one mustn’t try to translate everything into a language (or taste) understood by many.
“Preserve the old traditions and the food (esp the name) that comes from it for you won’t be getting much when you are older.
Put your love into the food you prepare and you will have your forever.”
©kanikachugh