The generational wealth of round rotis
a story of acquiring a valuable soft skill for future generations
I was to leave for Brisbane, Australia in a month. Panicked, I arrived at Janhavi’s kitchen. It was 8 pm, dinnertime, and she was making chapatis. Largely, I was prepared for my upcoming move from India to Australia, but I had one niggling question on my mind.
Who will make me chapatis when i’m there?
Chapatis (also called rotis) are at the centre of any Indian plate, and like anything else that’s at the centre, they carry a lot of weight.
You eat chapattis with dals and chicken and egg curries, folding, tearing and scooping with one hand as you go. Children eat them in their lunchboxes, wrapped with paneer and peas or boiled and spiced potatoes. Most afternoons, I came home from school to sugar chapatis, a homemade roll-up of leftover chapati, ghee and sugar — a staple that now my daughter requests as she’s setting her school bag down.
And that is why I was at my neighbour’s home, long before I even had other mouths to feed. To acquire a skill and thereby secure very important generational wealth.
Because a chapati isn’t just a chapati — it’s a soft, flaky filament from home. A connection, a love letter, an echo you can hear across seas and continents. A chord that can be long enough that you can grasp the other end at your new home, stabilising you in a new environment.
Since then, long since that first move, i’ve tried to learn. It’s a nuanced skill that people who know it will tell you is easy — as with most skills that people have been unconsciously practising their whole life — inherited from grandmothers, verbal storytelling and plain exposure over centuries.
But it’s a nuanced skill:
how much water do you add to the dough?
do you sift the flour first?
how high is your flame as you roast them?
So I kept practising. Feeding my family stiff chapatis, misshapen chapatis, undercooked chapatis. But chapatis nevertheless.
Until one day it all clicked into place.
My partner was overseas for work. I was parenting by myself, keeping school uniforms ready, meals on the plate, bins out on bin day, red yellow green, making sure there was enough eggs in the fridge and the yard was trimmed and the surfaces were visible under the mountains of craft paper.
In the thick of it, I fell sick — the flu.
A dear friend heard the panic in my texts and promised to make every meal for me while my daughter and I were sick. Meal after meal thermoses of food showed upon our doorstep — chicken soup with celery and sweet corn, hot dal with curry leaves and cumin seeds, mildly spiced vegetables with a kiss of ghee. And one very important aluminium foil square package — containing the hottest, softest chapatis straight from her tava.
And I hadn’t felt someone else’s love so acutely, so customised to me, in a while.
On the first day my body temperature stabilised, I appeared at her door with an armload of her thermos containers. She took me in, gave me tea, and invited me to stay and watch while she made her family chapatis.
I watched like my daughter’s entire 5-year-old Prep class — jaw dropped, taking notes, alert, determined to get it right this time.
That Sunday afternoon, I created one after another, the most beautiful chapatis. Round, puffing on the flame like little robins, proud, pliable like handkerchiefs.
Now that I’ve secured this wealth, I use it generously. And funnily, in its constant use, it keeps growing.
I make chapatis to dip into chai in the afternoon, chapatis for my daughter’s lunchbox, wrapping omelettes and cheese and paneer. I make it for my friends, returning the good karma, stacking them up in a round box and leaving it for them to discover when they return home after a busy day.
And most of all, I make chapatis to recreate the feeling of home while being oceans away in a new one. I create the feeling of being looked after, parented and fussed over.
And I intend to pass it down to anyone who will listen.
Recommendations and discoveries from this week
Deadloch
A dark comedy-murder-mystery unlike any other I’ve seen before. It’s made me laugh, feel seen for my weirdness, appealed to my self-deprecatory side, and made me feel so proud to call Australia home. IMDB says, “A feminist noir comedy set against a bucolic backdrop with a rising body count.” Watch, watch!
p.s I love the chemistry between the lead pair of detectives.
Soaked almonds and raisins
Having a morning routine, however small, is a lovely little reliable treat at the start of every day. Mine right now is eating soaked almonds and raisins in the quiet kitchen before anyone else wakes up, and it starts the night before when I lovingly soak them up for my full family.
That’s all from me this week, folks. Hope you’re having a magnificent week, wherever you are.
xx
Som
The humble chapati might look drab, but when had hot off the tawa with some curry of dal, it's from another world altogether! The taste of home.. although we might master the round chapati someday, we can never match up to our mothers and grandmothers. Lovely write-up, Sowmya.