Burnt Toasts and Grandmother’s Love

Somewhere in a small house in a small town in Pakistani Punjab, a teenage boy wakes up to the sound of various activities happening around him. He finds himself on a charpai of an old house whose yellow walls need to be painted (charpai is a traditional woven bed). The white sheet he took over him to sleep is now failing to keep him warm. He hears the kids playing in the narrow street outside. The municipal jamadaar (sweeper) shouts at them for running over his pile of dirt. His strong Punjabi accent shows his frustration. The mother of one of the boys screams and calls her son back into the house. Her voice is loud and clear through the thin long street which is full of traditional Indian style houses. It is difficult for this teenage boy to keep his eyes closed. The movement around his charpai is also becoming quite intense now. On the corner is a very small kitchen with a gas stove. The teenage boy, although he is still pretending to sleep, can look into the kitchen with half his head still hiding under the white sheet. There is a big orange cylinder connected to the stove. Above it is an old-style radio that his uncle has manually tuned into Radio Pakistan. A beautiful Urdu song is being played. It then abruptly ends with modern music. It sounds like war music, 'yeh radio Pakistan hei, ab aap Shakeel Ahmed say khabrain sun rahein hein. Tooont toont.' (This is Radio Pakistan and I am your newscaster Shakeel Ahmed. Beep beep sound). The boy's eyes fall on the stove where his chacha (uncle) had put double roti (white bread) for his dadi (grandmother). The smell of butter on the double roti is becoming intense as it starts to burn. The teenage boy doesn't wake up, he smiles, that's his favourite part, the bread is burnt, and his chacha, who is wearing a traditional shalwar and bunyan (Indian pants and a white vest), is busy dying his hair in front of an extremely small mirror in the veranda, runs to the kitchen... The smell of bread and butter is amazing, uncle is now busy scratching off the burnt bread with a knife... khrrrr khrrrrch and then the teenage boy wakes up. His favourite person looks at him with a smile 'Aslam o alaikum Mujahid puttar aaao double roti aur chai k saath naashta karain' (good morning my son Mujahid, let's have breakfast with bread and tea)....... The boy is up now and enjoying his dadi's hugs.

I wonder if my son will ever know what it means to me when I make him bread with butter on a pan on Sunday mornings. Only I know what this beautiful smell means, and where it takes me.