365 DAYS 365 TALES

Breakfast on Saturdays

Before reading this story the one basic dish you have to know about Indian cooking is something called 'Dosa'. It is a staple diet of almost all south Indians. The only thing that you need to know about dosa is that it is made of rice flour and usually comes out round and goes great with any side dish, can be made in a matte of minutes and about three or four dosas would satisfy a person for breakfast...

And one another thing that you should remember is that my hubby is a geek.

Ok now that you know these facts. let us move on to a glorious Saturday. That is the day I usually dread. Because that is the day I have to go to office, leaving my daughter and my husband back home. And that is a very unhealthy combination. Both of them get angry at the same times for the same reason and in short end up driving each other completely nuts in the four hours that they are together, without me. And the reason I really dread this day is that when I come back both of them separately give three hour long complaint of what the other person did wrong that day.

I was as usual getting late for office. I mean it. Going late had almost become a habit. I had made the sambar (a side dish and quiet unimportant for the story) and was watching the minute hand moving very fast and decided that I could trust the two of them to make the dosa and eat it with sambhar.

And I was off.

And this is the transcript of what happened ten minutes after my departure.

D (Daughter): Dad! Do we really have to make dosa?

H (Husband): Of course we do! If we go out and have breakfast, mom will know and she will scold both of us!

D (sighing): Ok! I will make the dosa! (I should probably add that my daughter is eight years old)

H (surprised): You know how to make dosa?

D (scoffing): I have seen mummy make dosa hundred times. Of course I know how to make it! The one thing I do not know is how to light the gas! Mummy told me never to do it and never be near a lighted gas without an adult.

H: Luckily mummy taught me how....

D: Great! Together the two of us would make dosa!

H (drily): Incidentally I can also make dosa.

D (shocked): You can cook?

H is obviously lost for an answer and wisely did not reply.

D (challengingly): Make a dosa! Only then I will believe it.

The next minute were filled with hissing noises in the kitchen.

H: There! That is going to be a perfect dosa! (I am sure he was congratulating himself on getting it to a perfect circle. I did warn you that he was a geek, didn't I?)

D (disgusted): Dad!

H: What?

D (still disgusted): What an ugly dosa!

H looked at the dosa and probably figured out a minute error which prevented the dosa from being a perfect circle.

H (in a tiny voice): I will make the next...

D (almost shrieking): You made a round dosa! (disgusted) Who on earth makes a boring round dosa!

H is lost for words the second time around.

D: Give that to me! We are supposed to make dosa in all sizes, shapes...like a telephone, like....like mickey mouse...that would be great! Not round! That is boring...

Ok that story goes on and finally an hour later, the two of them finished all the rice flour at home and sat down for breakfast. That day for some strange reason I received a slightly lesser complaint and it did not involve the breakfast time at all.

My problem...the two of them 'by mistake' got some dosas round....And the two thoughtfully left about 17 dosas for me to eat....And I am definitely not going to office the next Saturday...My stomach cannot take it anymore...

⭐⭐⭐

SA Krishnan (17/03)