A Diary Entry on Dosas and Domesticity
Sunday morning, rustling in bed with the blankets and pillows, a delicious smell rouses my drowsy self. I take in as much as I can; the morning breakfast; through my nose in hopes it wakes me from my slumber, right before the shrill whirring of the mixer splashes my hazy hopes with frigid water.
Sunday breakfasts or brunches (depending on when I am awake) are unlike any other meal I consume the rest of the week. In a house full of bustling feet and yelling insufferable, Sunday morning is the one time everyone gathers at an appropriate time to sit around the table, sharing their week's tidbits and gossips, discuss the news and crack a corny joke or two. As the resident South Indian family in my neighbourhood, my mother's dosas and idlis are an in-demand speciality in contrast to the sinful recreation of my native food by the as we like to call them in a humorously offensive manner, "North Indians". Some of my earliest memories were of Patti making me dosas and coconut chutney and feeding me patiently while she dramatized made-up stories for her stubborn little girl, which I grew up to realize, was just a genius tactic to keep me engrossed enough to finish my food.
The onsets of different periods in my life were strangely marked by how well I could make dosas. Patti taught me how to make my first dosa when I was four and the ambitious little me saw a future as the next Masterchef junior winner. When I was old enough to have realistic dreams, Amma insisted I learn how to make the perfectly tangy yet mild tomato chutney to help her out on hectic mornings. At fifteen, with the world's weight slouching on my shoulders, not only was I skilful enough to start my own Dosa stall, but I curated my own version of the dish.
My wrists were conditioned for years to keep up with the rush of scooping out the dosa batter, spreading it in a circular shape on the pan resembling the Poornima moon, flipping it at the right stage where the outside is crispy yet fluffy enough to melt your insides and finally folding the dosa into a semicircle that could give competition to the setting sun dipping into the arms of the horizon.
The decade's old pan slowly rusted with time, Patti found her way to heaven, and Amma occupied herself with work. I eventually took over breakfast duty just like any obliged young woman of the family should. I can taste my labour relishing the schezwan potato masala, but it's still missing something to Amma's ghee roast or Patti's Uttapam. Was it the spices or the heat not being enough? Where was I lacking? Was it the food that was bland or my unsatisfied disposition?
Maybe it’s the absence of panicked shouts from the bedroom to flip the dosa before it burns or to taste the salt in the chutney before taking it off the heat, or maybe it's a demure woman with a slight tilt in her lips after savouring my recreation of her dish, internally pleased to see a viable aspirant to pass on the baton of making breakfast for the family.
- N.
