You return home from your college or school or office. You dump your bags n baggage and slump down on the sofa or rush to freshen up yourself. In the mean time by some instinct or unconscious habit, you shout, "I'm home", which also means, "I'm hungry". And what appears next is your habitual lunch or dinner. Your attention moves to the menu. You assess what all you would eat and what all you would'nt like to. If the food is good, you are a happier person else a grumbler one. But what goes unnoticed in this huge hassle of occupational stress, food choice, pending jobs and all life routines, is the plight of making "ROTI".
Probably, this sounds funny to you, but food fanatics and amateur cooks may proceed if they wish. I am about to tell you my war with making a single successful roti.
Once upon a time, when helping mummy with her house hold chores was my hobby, I looked wide-eyed at how my mother was stretching the small ball of flour with her rolling pin that she later put on the tava and then on fire and once it puffed beautifully, she served it to everyone and everyone gorged on their food right away. I watched it everyday until I grew to believe,"that's all it needs to make a roti. No big deal. I could do it!'.
So one fine day, I don't even remember when, I pulled out some pre-mashed dough. I got the rolling pin and some dry flour and set to work. I dipped the dough ball into the flour and patted it on the base of the rolling pin. Then I moved the rolling pin up and down. "Cheerios", I said. First part cleared! My glory however waned by the time I reached the third or fourth round of rolling. The silly thing kept getting stuck, and I had to re dip it in the flour each time I rolled. At one angry movement out of frustration, the roti got punched at a corner. I also observed my roti looked nothing short of an amoeba. Never-the-less, I carried the flailing roti and kept it on the hot tava like my mother always did.Satisfied that I appeared to do something almost similar, I removed the tava from the stove and placed the roti on fire, almost imagining it would puff like it always did. Lo and behold, something happened. A tiny bubble of some trapped gas, about the radius of 1 mm, puffed up. A little while later, I realized that I should turn over the roti. As I did that, I saw the obvious results of overbaked roti... a black surface that too with potholes in it and the roti was as brittle as papad. Depressed, I rushed to my mother. Amused and happy by my interest in the subject, she taught me the real way of making roti.
She did it so amazingly nicely and easily! Like some magic! She plopped the ball of dough and rolled it on and on showing how the pressure is applied to a single corner of the pin, how the roti rotates automatically that way, how you avoid puncturing the roti while rolling it, how you roll it thin and what not. Within seconds what lay before me, was a perfectly round shaped unbaked roti. She placed it on the hot tava and explained me how long it should be kept there and thereafter, placed it immediately on to fire and puff!!! There lied the mouth watering soft and perfectly baked, staple food of India.
What followed was a little more, on-the-spot training and some compliments at whatever slight attempt I made. But the bad thing was, despite all the demos and boost ups, the amoeba would just not bugde. And even if it did, it would turn into a paramoecium or euglena or other such stuffs with amazing structures until I realized that as a student, my job is to study and not bake rotis.
I believe quitting a struggle is bad because that's a virtue after all. And mind you, using all the scientific and artistic skills I know, I have learnt to make a 90% round and an appreciably un-burnt roti. It continues to be of the brittle sort but I would hate to overlook my subtle achievements in this field. However,I have realized that of the hundreds of dishes my mother and most mothers and cooks of our country make, the single one that is singularly, enough to challenge your culinary skills, is 'baking the roti'.
Meanwhile I continue stand near my mummy in the kitchen and marvel over and over again at the unrecognized skill with which she rolls every roti into a perfect circle of regular thickness and puffs them up perfectly with such a glamorous ease.
And I take one such Garam garam roti, drop a little ghee and watch it melt, dip it into garam garam dal and sabzi and ummmmm......................................... Yummy...... I just allow myself to feel the heavenly bliss. Thank you dear roti. Thank you, Mummy. :).
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