Zafranistan

Episode 3 " Sattu Parantha, tamatar ki meethi waali chutney, kaddu ki sabzi & chokha....Here you go my beautiful Zafran, enjoy the feast! " Peehu giggled. What joy it gave her, to cook for her. Maybe she realised that Zafran has lost something which she couldn't mention in front of her, but this journey which she has started to live will for sure compensate some part of it. " What is sattu? And why is the chutney so pulpy? Chokha? What is that? " Zafran flooded Peehu with a lot of questions. " Sattu is a kind of a flour made from roasted gram. It is our staple for protein. Chutney here is pulpy & tangy because it is made with love by slowly crushing it on the silwatta ( a flat stone bed over which the masala is rubbed by a pestle.)  Chokha being the way the boiled potatoes were prepared. It is mashed with love, flavoured with the temper of mustard oil, cumin seeds, garlic, dried red chilli. Then chopped raw onions and green chilli were ad...

Episode 2 ( House no. 30 ) "The queue is....urghh very long! What should I order?" Zafran was waiting in the queue in front of the Subway counter. "Shammi Kebab with all veggies, all sauces. Honey & oats bread toasted with cheese. As you have always liked it. Accha do my Vocab revision with me." Said Krishna.  Zafran was thinking all this as she was sitting in the auto moving through the streets of the IAS colony. A lot of unorganised traffic, with people honking for no reason. India was the same everywhere. Just the streets got narrow and the roads shrinked. Yes there was poverty, still people helped. "Lijiye Madam, aa gya Patliputra. Ghar ka no. Btaiye. Aapko beech road me nhi utaarenge" said the auto waala. "Bhaiya house no. 30..........peehu!" Zafran saw peehu standing in the same lane. She jumped out of the auto, hit her head hard on the roof of the auto and fell. "Zafran you can never stop being clumsy! Humko laga kuch to...