Home-made Series

I. The Solitary Sweet

A single slice of sweet sits in its box. The wrapper is mangled and not one scrape has been spared except for this-one sweet, tantalizing cube. Unlike the rest that were graced with an agonizingly short life, this particular piece of forlorn sweet is on its third solitary day. 

You see, my uncle and granny love this particular variety. From this one specific shop. Rumored to be made by an old man who guards the 75-year old recipe with his dear life. A rare treat. Cautious as he might be and old as she might be, every walk past the ebony table left their fingers sticky and lips smacking in satisfaction. 

“It doesn’t matter!”, they say, when I point out that the poor specimen was becoming increasingly elastic with the moist breeze sneaked into the assaulted carton. “In fact,'' they say, glancing hungrily at it, “it tastes better!” 

Yet, there it sits- a piece, the last. The mother saving it for her son and the son checking his growling tummy. I do not know who might win (probably the ants). But I know this. Love isn’t red roses and rustic cards. It can as well be an extremely lonely soan papdi sitting at the dining table.