Because cashews technically count as nutrition, kaju katli,.
Open the door and you’ll find laddoos stacked like tennis balls, barfis wrapped in shiny paper, gulab jamuns floating in syrup, dry-fruit mithai arranged like precious stones and one suspicious box of “healthy chocolates” nobody has touched since the festival began. Every time I ask, “What is there to eat?”, mom looks personally offended. Eat one more, because “maasi will think you didn’t like it”.
The fridge is full of mithai this festive season, but there’s nothing to eat. This is not a fridge anymore. It is a sugar museum curated by my family. “Eat the mithai. That is not an answer, mom. That is a sugar-based threat. Mithai has now entered every meal. Breakfast? Have a peda. Lunch? Some gulab jamun. Dinner? Feeling tired? Eat a motichoor laddoo. Feeling full? Then there are the luxury sweets gifted in the name of sophistication. Boxes so fancy they look like they belong in a jewellery showroom. Inside: gold-dusted truffles, pistachio pralines, rose and saffron bites, dry-fruit mithai, Belgian chocolate-coated nuts and tiny desserts with names longer than their ingredients lists.
One bite is usually enough. After that, everyone quietly goes back to the good old motichoor laddoo. And then come the sugar-free kaju katlis and date chocolates. These are not disliked. They are simply ignored by the entire household. The regular kaju katlis disappear in eleven minutes, while the sugar-free ones remain untouched, waiting for a health-conscious guest who may never arrive. The date chocolates look like chocolate but taste like dates wearing a chocolate costume.
Every time I mention noodles or a pizza, someone points towards the fridge and says, “There’s so much mithai at home. ” Yes, but I am craving hakka noodles, not another box of dry-fruit mithai pretending to be a luxury experience. When I suggest ordering kuch meetha after dinner, the family says, “Why? Festive season is joyful, generous and delicious, but after days of mithai overload, the stomach wants comforting dal-chawal with crispy papads, the soul wants pan-Asian food, and the fridge offers another box of “best wishes”.
Meanwhile, I’m craving noodles or some proper Chinese food, but first there is an important family mission: pehle ghar ki mithai khatam karni hai. Apparently, ordering anything savoury before finishing the festive sweets would be an insult to the aunty upstairs, all the relatives who sent mithai and possibly the entire sugar industry. There is so much mithai at home. And they are right. There is dry-fruit mithai, chocolate mithai, sugar-free mithai, date chocolates and something covered in edible gold that nobody can identify. My festive wish is simple: may every home have unlimited edible sweets, one container of actual food, and a mom who keeps making peda paranthas. – This rant comes from Aditi Pancholi, who believes a fridge should contain actual food, not just festive leftovers
Because, mom, festive sweets should not feel like homework. Eventually, mom asks, “Why is nobody eating these? Then mom took the situation to the next level and made a parantha out of a peda. I was ready to object. Then I took one bite. Unfortunately, it was delicious. Crispy, warm, sweet and completely unfair to my argument, the peda parantha became the unexpected hero of the festive season. Mom’s food experiment genuinely deserved a standing ovation.