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Sharina Saad May 2013
I promised my PATI.. a chapati for breakfast
A plain chapati I passionately learnt to make
Oh.. What an impression I will make...
A marvelous chapati and a glass of milk
I will prepare with all my heart..
A SUPERB Chapati from a BIWI to her PATI..

I am a BAHU.... an obedient BAHU...to my SASU MAA..
Ohh and she will brag ... I am the best BAHU...
The best in India if not in the world...
I am so proud... What a chapati maker I am..
A super BIWI.. an obedient BAHU...
I will make superbb.... chapati...
The whole India will dance with me...
Dance in my kitchen with me....

But my SASUR requested for a Masala Chapati
And he wanted it for lunch... today
for dinner tonight and for breakfast tomorrow..
An obedient Bahu... I am.... A super Biwi I am..
Ohhh ...I am no MASALA CHAPATI maker...
Plain chapati... plain chapati thats what i learnt...

I searched for a recipe... MASALA CHAPATi...
Butter,Chilli and coriander powder..
I cook them all together...
Cumin seeds, vegetablas and GARAM MASALA..
Ohh la la la.... here goes the chapati masala...

Oppss... when everything is set..
My SALI comes to check....
AMMI JI.... AMMI JI... she called..
My MASALA CHAPATI is about to ready...

My pati.. my sasu maa... my sasur and my Sali
We all sit together..
My cooking smells good..
When MASALA CHAPATI is served....
They all smile and look at me...
WHAT?? IS THIS MASALA CHAPATI????
And we all dance on the kitchen floor....
To my family in India....
Sharina Saad May 2013
Chapati

Hot chapati,
Cold Chapati,
Soft Chapati
Hard Chapati,
Delicious Chapati
Bad chapati
Alia makes her own chapati.....
She burns it a little at the side
Never mind ... Chapati War ends here....
"MUJHE ROTI PASAND HAI"
Alia loves to try just anything.... love my daughter muaahh!!
Sharina Saad May 2013
Hot chapati,
Cold Chapati,
Soft Chapati
Hard Chapati,
Delicious Chapati
Bad chapati
Rina is trying to learn to make her own chapati.....
She is a fast learner, perhaps she could beat all the women in Hoshiarpur India   ....
Let's find out in her new story...   Coming soon Chapati War in Hoshiarpur....
"MUJHE ROTI PASAND HAI"
wrote this when I first learnt how to make chapati
Sharina Saad May 2013
2 cups of atta flour
mix it with a cup of lukewarm water
add a pinch of salt
Ready to knead the dough
Knead it soft, knead it hard
Throw it on the air
Roll it on the table
Rest it for sometime
While you check on your curry
Perfect TENGGIRI fish curry
Put it in microwave, Nuke it
the aroma fills the air...
Smells good... salive drops oppss...
Heat the pan now dear
8 chapati all together fresh in a bowl
one by one roll it well
make it really round
a little bit of ghee, hmm... smells like heaven
my daughter waits with a plate in her hand
one chapati ready,
two chapati ready,
three chapati ready,
Mummy I leave the plate on the table now
I want to switch on the tv
My daughter comes back
all three chapati are stolen...
She screams out loud
WHO STOLE MY CHAPATI?????
And the chapati war begins.....
Have dinner everyone....
Sharina Saad May 2013
Mrs Sharma is looking busy
Walking back from her yoga class
In Her right hand a bag full of potatoes
In her left hand, 2 kilos of onions
Its a freaking hot day in Delhi,
She stopped a taxi and hurried home
Aloo paratha her family's menu for today.

At home she went straight to her kitchen
Peeled and boiled the Potatoes
finely chopped Onion, coriander, ginger and chillies
Now where is the garam masala?
Here you are Mrs Sharma,
Salt Red Chili powder, Garam masala and some butter
Aloo Paratha with lots of butter,YUM YUM
Lunching at Sharma's home is Splendid
better than Mahesh Lunch Home in Juhu, Andheri.

Let's get started says Mrs Sharma
Let's make the dough
Make two chapati
add the filling to one chapati
and cover it with the second one.
Now Mrs Sharma rolls it slightly and heats it in the oven...

Let's ask Mrs Sharma,
Is food the elixir of life?
Yes very much she said
She feels like she is living for it.
As she spreads butter over the paratha
She says her mantra twice,
Eat healthy but don’t over eat.

She serves aloo paratha hot to her smiling kids
adds yoghurt to Mr Sharma's plate
she is so proud when she says to her family
Eat in moderation and eat healthy..
Smile and let's eat Aloo paratha Mrs Sharma's way...
Aloo paratha is my late mom's favourite..
Harmony Nov 2015
Dough making
with flour and water
Salt and butter
Calls for kneading
In ritualistic candor
As parts come together
To an irreversible matter

The soft cushion of dough
between the palm and the bowl
pliable with every push and shove
stretched and compressed
In sheepish conformity


Blistered on  skillet
Puffed up to a chapati
Heavens thanked with each bite
For flat bread with savory curry
Fills nostrils with soft aromas-
Relished as heaven on tongue-
One is contented of this flat bread
Sharina Saad Jun 2013
When I was small
I had a favorite game
A game only girls loved to play
Paper dolls, pretty paper dolls....

My sister Sara dressed the paper dolls nicely
Elegantly dressed, pretty dolls...
and we loved to style them our ways...
We got bored easily and Sara begged me to buy more dolls...
I used my childish charm to get a rupee or two
My grand papa joked about our  paper dolls
"no saree wearing dolls"? " no chapati making dolls"?
" No parantha making dolls?
and both of us replied.... " ohhhh.... shut up grandpapa"

When we grew up a little,
My sister and I were sent to a boarding school.
It was all girls school
and we were taught grooming, social etiquette
and how to be a lady...prim and proper
Dressed smartly, talked only when necessary
and sat up neatly, no head turns..
No giggling... only smile delicately
No tantrums or emotional plays...
just be poised... controlled.. poised and controlled...
Of course
We were not allowed to play paper dolls anymore

After awhile I hated the school...
Told my sister.....  They were turning us
into paper dolls...
Paper dolls have no say...
They only follow.. They are puppets
Remember paper dolls we used to play?
All pretty in the outside but there is no life
to breathe....
Suffocated i felt here.....all I wanted to do is flee
Sis, cmon this is certainly not us... let's flee

WE SAID GOODBYE TO OUR BED AND WE DID RUN....
We managed to be who we wanted to be in the end
to live in real world, be with real people
given a freedom to choose what we wanted to do
with life...
We enjoy our life not the traditional way anymore
Have career and still we dressed nicely and elegantly
We are real people...
Unlike the paper dolls , who only look poise and beautiful..
but inside they are freezing.... lifeless....paper dolls..
There’s a lot to be said for this place.
A near-perfect pitch for diversity,
Diversity:  a neurolinguistic term;
A quaint way to say: miscegenation.
No, just kidding; I meant the melting ***,
A fine blend of Anglo, Hispanic & Indian blood—
That’s Pueblo & Plains Indian blood--
Not that **** masala, chapati & dal Indian blood.
My apologies to "Who's the White Guy?" Bobby Jindal.
New Mexico: “The Land of Enchantment.”
Where 310 sunny days per annum,
Are like money in the bank, earning
Double-plus compound interest for those
Suffering with seasonal affective disorders.
A land of sunshine without the orange juice,
But substitute chili, red or green?
An equitable offset to be sure.
310 days of sunshine:
Even the white people are brown here.
Which does a lot for my self-esteem.
Back east—New York, Chicago & Philadelphia e.g.—
People that look like me, i.e.,
People with dark brown hair, eyes and skin,
Get stopped/***-cheek spread/& frisked, routinely.
Stop & Frisk: NYPD’s spectator sport for decades.
Stop & Frisk: Mayor Bloomberg-defended
Crime-stopping Godsend,
Getting guns off the streets.
Getting homicides down.
Everything’s cool until some slick race baiter,
Starts yelling:  RACIAL PROFILING.
Forget for a moment that people that look like me,
People like me with dark hair, eyes & skin,
Commit 78% of the crime in most cities.
“It’s not racially driven profiling,”
Said Newark’s police director recently
Referring to stops carried out by his officers.
“IT’S CRIME-DRIVEN PROFILING!”
But, again, political-correctness trumps common sense:
August 2013: Judge Rules NYPD
Stop-and-Frisk Unconstitutional.

Well I’ll be a monkey’s *** ******!
I moved to New Mexico to blend in.
My complexion a shoe-in for
The Witness Protection Program or
Any other public or private,
Domestic or international rendition site.
But I digress.
New Mexico: no passport necessary, Babaloo!
New Mexico: be you white or black, Hispanic or Indian,
Or even Roswell extraterrestrial,
The cops here will beat the **** out of you.
Or shoot you dead, Kemosabe.
Mercury Chap Jun 2016
Knit that sweater for me, please,
That sweet humming with its peaceful catch
Your hands and their darkening crease,
A mere cloth of your hardwork
To stay with me.

When it wraps around me
On a chilly day
I'll feel your love
Your warm embrace.

Under the sunlight
I'll dream of the rows,
Silly reasons to fight,
But even if for a day, I was your foe,
Your love would cook for me,
Knead the chapati dough

Make me that beautiful sweater
On my 90th Christmas when you're above
I'll wear your colours, my dear mother,
Which will remind me.of your undying love.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
i was directed to this place by Marty Feldman, and he said i should say this password to gain entry: float like a chapati, sting like a vindaloo.

i' not good at making passes at someone's death,
just yesterday i was thinking
while a quiz show took place with haiku clues
regarding famous people, so i wondered
aloud: would it still be the correct answer if
you said: cassius clay? what a cool name,
colossus of clay - what the hell does Muhammad
and Ali have to do with african rooting
when you hardly speak Swahili? a bit pointless,
but a name like cassius clay... unstoppable -
already mythological, rather than a family
feud between Ali and the Caliphs after Muhammad's
death - maybe he should have confirmed his
baptism as Muhammad Ali with a confirmation
akin to catholic practice and added a surname, like
Khadijah, well... if Mozart is turning in his coffin
for his music being turned into a muzak
or a Porcupine Tree tree song, then the first wife of
Muhammad is turning in hers... a wise women
of sound economic acumen could be compared
by secular standards to Gabriel's voice, women tell lies,
just today i saw plain Jane turn into a stunner,
she was gagging to go on a date with a guy of her dreams,
by media standards a subsequent loser in Morocco,
at a photo shoot of practising flirtation a half-and-half
love affair between the Gothic island of the Caribbean
that's England and the Bahamas flirted with olive skin,
blue eyes and pecks, and an ego shaped like a woodpecker...
or an u.z.i., poor guy, got to make a show,
but the ***** is out! she noticed her eyes!
what further shahada of scheherazade?
just one more night, just one more night, one more, night.
demigods and men, traces of narcissus in man resides
in his eyes, nowhere else, man and woman fall in love
with their eyes, rather than narcissus and the complete
visage, but as i once said: imagine narcissus looking
into the sea - he might as well have fallen in love with
the stillness of the lake rather than the image represented
by it - across the seven seas he roamed, across the seven
zeniths, until he came across the Lake of Echo,
and heard the echo of footsteps beside him, to have seen
the natural mirror by moonlight, and settled to lie,
disguising himself as a flower worth recycling:
each god in polytheism his own individual, reigning ideal
in the pantheon of gods: solipsism - with man's intervention
a notably study of, himself.
although i'd love to chat thoroughly about this,
i'm not so sure i want to - hear the words:
you're a good man... you're a good man in a brothel?
you think a ******* would forget saying that
and continue? *persona incognito grata
-
a golden crown on her tooth that i peered into with her
Ukrainian accent speaking polish, i lost my virginity
to a French girl without any connection - proceeding
from the way she decided a child learning a new language
aged 8 could not be considered a native speaker
for a psychology experiment - i gave her a silent lesson
in history concerning Napoleon and the last heroic act
of warfare, after that, civilians were utilised like bombs
or rifles, the many guilts after all the killing seized.
anyway, today i decided to cook two knock-outs...
the first was intended as a kolhapuri chicken curry,
the latter was chicken do'h pyaaza, with the later
the title, indeed the fenugreek incident, fenugreek
being a concentrated version of kasoori methi,
if the Turks invented hot & sour with a pickled chilli,
the blue Indians invented a whole palette of sour and hot
with this dish, and the crucial ingredient that's
fenugreek - although the crystalline form of this spice
is more potent - the recipe asked for one tablespoon
of the raw products, the leaves (kasoori methi) -
i added a teaspoon of the concentrated stuff -
what a disaster! i asked for two tasters to tell me that i
wasn't tasting bitterness in the gravy as if i added some
English ale revenge against continental beers...
because the excess of the component of intended sourness
of the fenugreek turned into an ale-like bitterness -
hence the notion that sour isn't an antonym of sweet,
but bitter is - hence sweet & sour rather than
sweet & bitter - you can have a turkish pickled chilli
and still have a compliment on the palette of hot & sour,
but imagine tasting bitterness - excess of concentrated
kasoori methi does the trick - and since Faust doesn't
have an Igor like Dr. Frankenstein, he turned himself
into a hunchback, and started picking out most of the
fenugreek crystals from the gravy, one by one, ony by one,
hunched over the sauces - until the bitterness disappeared
and the intended sourness came through -
it took a while, but Faust as his own assistant kept on
saying: stop lying, stop lying! i want to eat this sauce too!
that's the thing with chemistry and cooking,
i received a present not too long ago, an arsenal
of spices, which means i can punch-bag you a Peshwari
naan with raisin and almond stuffing (a bit of sugar too),
and i can add the raw ingredients - i'm richer with
spices than with drugs or gold: turmeric is also known
as saffron - although saffron is more potent,
turmeric does the same job... coriander powder, cumin
power (also seeds), mint the prime garnish for
do'h pyazza curry... garam masala made from scratch,
meaning i have: cardamom pods, cloves, black cardamom,
mace... and i can make you a kohlapur masala...
honestly... in this great culinary babylon of english society,
from pizzas to chinese to Kentucky to New York
street vendors... i'd give up the cuisine i was born in
and convert to India's palette... i don't need to convert
anything else... religion can remain with those who
barely read, or who read and cite only one book...
let them have it... i don't care...
i already converted to a non-religious fascination with
mystical Judaism (sorry Allah, couldn't do anything
with your name, it didn't fit the Latin revision of thinking
about it), and as such, converted to a dreamy everyday
of India's culinary prowess - Kama Sutra is nothing
compared to the recipes from Kashmir or anywhere
where the blue bloods fascinated the merchants rather than
scalped them in berserker rage among the puritan
envoys.
Solitary Sac Aug 2016
Last chapati left.
"I am not hungry."
She lied.
30 years later.
"Don't spend all money on my meds."
"Maa, i have enough in my savings."
I lied.
It was my turn for revenge.
Macstoire Mar 2014
Atop an Orange van driving through the jungle
Journeying toward Ugandan Safari
Heads skimming branches and hanging leaves
And above us super sized spiders held between the trees

Up-tailed Pumbas dash into the unknown
where branches are tangled within themselves
and cacti are dressed with vines like a curtain
giving lives some security from the hunters hidden within

Nearing the fall the redness of soil shines shards of diamond
like the confetti of angels
Whilst the deathly currents are gushing a fierce calming
the spray saturates us in a welcome cooling
as we view the hanging rainbow of bliss

The journey continues with our legs dusted in glitter of the earth
and wind blowing the wet from our skin
A knock delivers generous giving’s of green
And we listen to an orchestra of nature
welcome us to the scene of Africa as it should be

Within the park we’re stunned by stretching scenery
Raw Africa as far as eye can see
Afront us a distance of still Savannah
Yet life roams within in abundancy

Of which life we’re left wondering
As we reach the camp of the red chilli
our favourite taste of beer greets us
So sitting back we see the sun sinking
Whilst man builds for us shelter to sleep in

Next morn rises early setting out for sightings
And we watch the red-hot sunrise upon the Nile
The light catching glistening ripples of water
and the painted sky reflecting onto the hippos habitat

Our first taste of the wildlife we wish to see
Their faces skim the wet shallows
and occasionally rise to gather gasps of air
Father and child fight for hierarchy
And we’re excited to witness the creatures’ honesty

Across the water atop Betty life feels complete
Without doubt there’s no better place to be
Chapati and egg breakfast with wind in our hair
whilst we look for movement of life amongst the trees
Our faces stretched with permanent grins of glee

It’s so quiet we can hear the grasses rustling
The tempo set by the crickets chirruping
Interrupted only by spontaneous sound of birds singing
And whistles of romance as the winged ones are wooing
Peace is so perfectly performed it’s mesmerising

Of animals and birds we encounter many
The signatory Kob prance elegantly upon the heath
and dodge road collision at the last minute
Reminding us that this land is theirs
Pace needn’t pander to our presence

We catch glimpses of mongoose scarpering into bushes
And guinea fowl following the leader as they dot along the roadside
Kingfishers fluttering flirts in the skies above us
then make a sudden swift dive for feed in the ground beneath

The giraffe stand still like statues
all pointed toward the sun like proving a point of endurance
Determined not to let us see them run
While the birdlife exceeds expectations
as we score sight of spoonbill feeding breakfast in the lily littered lake

We meet herds of buffalo grazing
whilst birds peck the pests from their backs
proving every part of nature has its’ purpose
And making their bulky weight appear as no threat

The queens of the food chain are found chilling modestly in the shade
ignorant of our privilege for close proximity
Unfazed by vehicles gathering in view of her public rarity
she relaxes comfortably at roadside so calm she’s almost cuddly

Upon the Nile we witness wildlife washing
Flumps are cooling in the muddy waters
Ears flapping whilst feeding on the grasses of the riverbank
oblivious to the still and sinister crocs waiting within for prey to pass
their jaws held open ready to strike a snack

The blazing heat and gentle motion leaves passengers falling into sleep
But they willingly wake to view the gushing falls of Murchison
cascade down the rock front separating the hills of pure luscious green
and creating current for driver to fight so to journey back safely
Not become another story of tragedy

Then as we wait to board the boat back
Baboons come hither to hunt our rucksacks
To spite their unwanted paparazzi
They help themselves to our belongings greedily
Mother carrying child throughout the robbery

In two days atop Betty and water we’ve been enriched with excitement
and opportunity to see so many new beings
Route home passes Ziwa meeting the endangered rhino species
And we share time with Obama and his protected family

Our last portion of pleasure is hopeful
as we watch the bulky beasts live life naturally
in a sanctuary maintained by committed rangers
who help us follow their motion so closely
we see them soak and scratch their skin

Then back in Betty we have one last long journey
that takes us back to our dreaded reality
of a working week back in capital city
We’re sad but glad to hold a memory
of what was a fantastic fateful opportunity
Merchison Falls, Uganda. 13-15th January 2013
Sharina Saad May 2013
PRETTY MORNING,
EVERYBODY IS SMILING
LOOKING A LITTLE HUNGRY, Darling...
C'MON CHAPATI IS READY..
WHY WAIT? LETS HURRY...
DIP IT IN CHICKEN CURRY!!!
GO TO WORK AND BE MERRY!!!

— The End —