Unhurried carbohydrates

A hugely guilty memory for me from the years of the pandemic is how I slowed down to host family at home (my in-laws got stuck with us, never mind) and spent time with my son who was all of 3 years old then. My parents moved close by to help me with parenting as I’d just decided to take a leap into starting up myself. Covid hit, I moved out of my own startup with no future plan or job in hand. I was beside myself, but for the first time in ages, slept well - woke up leisurely with nowhere to go or anything to do.

During that time, we were all at home drinking our morning coffees leisurely sitting on the dining table, cooking and eating wholesome South Indian meals, board games, unfettered 1x speed while catching something on Netflix, long, lazy afternoons filled with naps and books, daily card games with chai when my parents came from their home to ours every afternoon. We started experimenting with a snack a day for our afternoons. Tried to make pakoras, kada prashad, bondas - things we’d possibly never made in my home. Deep fried, time consuming, indulgent food. Of course, it all stopped once I went back to the workforce, we all stepped out of our homes back to trafficky commutes and soul-less workplaces. Inlaws moved back, my parents got busy with their own lives and my son started school.

But something about that time and the sukoon as I’d like to call it in hindsight kept nagging me. I wasn’t working towards that sukoon but I knew that is what I craved for. My relationship with my in-laws went through sustainable changes though it was forced by proximity. I started seeing my parents differently.

To recreate that memory, I now try to meet my parents once a week for - not picking up my son hurriedly or picking up the nth masala/homemade ghee/dosae batter/a top my mum bought for me - but to have a cup of chai. Depending on the time, maybe coffee. But to sit at my mum’s kitchen in her new home is so peaceful - not the home I grew up in, but the home they now live in because they moved for me. Watching her make chai or coffee while telling me how I should consider growing my hair, or how I should be stricter with my son. Or, the same crib about my dad that she refuses to action on.

It is very soothing now. These exact conversations used to make me mad. They made me seek a life outside of my parents’ lives and surroundings, but here we are. For some reason, hearing her tell me about how the plastic dabbas she saved for her mum was rejected by her because they weren’t strong enough, and my mum’s annoyance at that - are all heartwarming now. I can sip on multiple cups of chai while I listen to her.

Last weekend, I woke up knowing I couldn’t eat yet another egg for breakfast as good as protein is. As a self respecting Tamilian, I knew bread was out even if it was fantastic as carbs. Either I needed a full-fledged elai saapaDu or maybe, even a dosae. Not the kind of dosaes from local Darshinis, but the ones made at home. Imperfect, soft, slightly darkened because you forgot them on the stove and made with slightly sour batter. No one sells these. No one can sell these.

I walked from my apartment to my mum’s - unbathed, in my pajamas with my large mug of coffee, still groggy and sat at her dining table. And asked for dosai. She fretted, wished I’d given her more notice. But then I knew she’d have batter. If not, she’d whip up something else - upma, poha, different type of dosai, but she’d have whipped up bfast for me. I needed carbs this Saturday morning and if nothing else, South Indian homes and mothers excel at feeding carbs to daughters like me.

P.S - The picture or the experience cannot be curated. That’s for my Instagram feed, not here

I sat there eating these beautiful dosais, complete with doddpatresoppu (ajwain leaves) chutney that she’d urgently made from her balcony garden’s harvest and my mum’s molagapudi that I will kill for. On an ancient steel plate that I’ve never not seen since I was born. .

I realise, dear reader, you might be looking for some learning or an a-ha moment when reading about my weekend carb craving. But no. This post is all about chronicling the memory of that moment as I ate dosai after dosai from my mum’s kitchen. I washed it down with yet another cup of strong filter coffee, served with unsolicited advice, gossip about dead aunts and inquiries into my weekend plans, all hoping I’d say I was cleaning my house.

But alas, my weekend plans or I aren’t as dependable or trustworthy as my parents’ home and their dosais for me.