Longing for dinner by the fireplace

Rajesh Sharma

SOCIAL media is beyond the wisdom of critics. Many a time, it rejoins us to our past. A flash of the past through posts of old pictures is a godsend. These mementoes, long lapsed to memory, re-narrate the tale of a dream called life.

A recent post by a friend was about a sojourn to his schoolteacher’s place where he savoured a traditional meal. Inter alia was an image of makki ki roti stuffed with boiled and mashed tubers of colocasia aka arbi or kachaloo, locally christened bejus. A winter treat in many parts of Himachal Pradesh, it can’t be baked well on an LPG stove and requires a traditional wood-fired chullah. It is called Behadwin roti. This post made my mind travel back to the days before I had moved out to learn and earn.

Our dinner was always by the fireplace. In winters, we took turns to be nearest to it to enjoy the warmth of the chullah. Every time I sat for dinner with my parents and siblings, I imagined myself sitting in the ‘family circle’, a picture of which I had discovered in The Tribune. In those years, the daily carried a regular pictorial on the oped page, with the heading; ‘Why we say?’ I grasped many idioms from that pictorial but the one about the family circle made me identify myself with it immediately and it remains etched and ever fresh in memory. Minus the dog that was also represented in that pictorial, about 47 years ago. The newspaper stopped publishing that feature a long time ago.

In summers, the fire in the chullah was doused about two hours before dinner was called. Dal that had been braised in a very thick bronze vessel called bhadu was served along with kadhi and rice to all, under the ever-indulgent supervision of parents. In winters, makki ki roti, fresh from the chullah, with sarson ka saag, dal and beju ki kadhi was more tempting than a seven-course dinner of today.

Especially on Diwali and Lohri, in our part of the state, dinner comprised of thin rotis known as aenkalies, akin to plain dosa, which were tawa-baked from a batter of rice flour, and relished with hot sweetened milk and Bhadhu-cooked mash ki dal, that tasted better than any celebrity dal makhni.

I wish someday I get a chance to eat like that once again. My wife still bakes aenkalies at times, but with my parents living their second childhood, no one fires the traditional chullah and all the cooking is now done on an LPG stove. A dinner by the fireplace remains a cherished dream. I long for all the three — the ‘family circle’ of my young days, dinner by the fireplace and the pictorial: ‘Why we say?’

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