Latha (my wife) attempted ‘Biscuit Rotti’ after a long long time. She
made a few which very much looked like, and tasted almost like, BRs that Amma
(my mother) used to make. Though they were not as light and crisp, it was a
pleasure to bite into one and recollect the memories of our childhood. Latha
said that she used wheat flour (atta), butter, dry coconut and sugar. Amma said
that she was using maida (refined wheat flour), rava (semolina), fresh coconut,
ghee and sugar, all of them mixed and pounded to make a smooth dough. I very
well remember that she used to give us some dough to be pounded in the ‘oraLu’ (grinding
stone with a depression in the center) using a ‘haare’ (a heavy metal pestle) and
it used to take a very long time to pound it to her satisfaction. In between we
could just take out small lumps of the dough and stuff them into our mouth.
Even the raw dough was tasty! After the dough was ready, amma would light the
kerosene stove, and sit in front of that with the rolling pin in hand, rolling
the dough into small ‘rottis’ and roasting them, on low flame. It was
painstaking job and it would be hours before one big and one small ‘SWAY’ (soap
powder) boxes were full of crisp, light, golden brown BRs, literally ‘Melting in the mouth’.
Amma says that she usually started after packing us off to
school, around 10 am and would finish by the time our father came home for
lunch - usually 3 pm. Five hours in front of the stove! Sometimes there would
be a post lunch session too. Our school was a full day affair, 10 AM to 5 PM,
and by the time we returned from school there would not be any signs of amma’s
toil. But the lingering fragrance of roasting BRs informed us about the goodies
and lead us to the ‘Sway’ box. We got an idea of the work involved in preparing
BRs when we witnessed the process during holidays. But even then, after
pounding the dough, we just left amma for herself in the kitchen and were
occupied with our ‘Golis’ (marbles), ‘Buguris’ (tops) or ‘chinni -danaaDu’ (a
game played using two wooden sticks, the smaller one with tapered ends to be
lifted and stuck with the longer one) or simply chatting with Datta (a gift of
a friend - two years elder to me but equally friendly with me, my brother and
sister who were younger to me by three and six years respectively. No childhood memory is complete without Datta) in the shade of our
guava tree. Now, when I think of her toiling in front of the stove the whole day,
alone, and we enjoying ourselves with games and friends, I feel guilty. But
that’s childhood, taking our parents for granted. Still, I wonder what made her
take up such tasks and spend half her life feeding us? Was the sight of her
children greedily stuffing things into their mouths so rewarding?
Now at eighty six, shrunk and frail, she sits on her arm chair
all day, reading something or the other and says that she has to put the book
down every now and then and rest, as her hands ache holding the book. You
mention rolling and roasting hundreds of BRs and she says “I sometime wonder if
I really did all that”?
‘Biscuit Rotti’ tasted wonderful on its own but smeared with
a thick layer of butter, it was heaven. The trouble was that butter was not
always available. It was expensive and was brought home only once a month or so
for preparing ghee (clarified butter). Amma would usually keep aside a small
bowlful of butter before heating it and incidentally if BR was also there, we
got to enjoy the combination. By god’s grace we have plenty of butter at home
now, but the same god has also graced us with plenty of cholesterol and we are
only allowed just a look at the big bowlful of butter twice a day! But if Latha
succeeds in gathering enough will and patience, attempts and gets the BRs
perfect the next time, butter sandwich it is going to be! Cholesterol be
damned.
PS: For the benefits of JKs: There were two
schools of thought about preparation of BRs. Indrakka’s and Buchchakka’s. Amma
followed Buchchakka’s recipe.