Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye?

Ever woken up in the middle of the night craving for sweets? Naah, I do not mean the American cheese cake or the Black Forest cake, but the typical Indian mithai? I never buy sweets from the Indian stores. Naah, it is not what you are thinking about weight watching and all that crap. I had once bought 10 laddus in all of 4 varieties on a Friday evening, wanting to share it with my wife. The entire weekend I had spent dipped in bucketful of guilt, having eaten all the laddus even before the poor laddus got the chance to see a new week.


People have a sweet tooth. I claim that all my 28 teeth are sweet. And of all the days, I had to crave for sweets when I didn’t even have milk at home. Had it been a kid craving for sweets and throwing a tantrum, I would have pacified it with something else to divert its attention. But how to pacify the kid in me that refused to let go without having something sweet?

Irritated and grumpy with myself, I got out of bed, brushed, and put on my thinking cap. I wish I could go back to sleep fantasizing about sweets, but that was not happening. Think, think, something had to be done to mollify these sudden bouts of sweet craving.

It is then that I heard the next door guy use the microwave. Still awake so late? I could already see my plan taking shape.

* Went out and told him hi, and gave him my sweetest smile.


* Told him that I barely saw him these days and if he was working very hard to get that Nobel prize he rightfully deserved (that was just silly conversation I was making, wink* wink**).

*Opened the fridge and scooped out a whole large spoonful of vegetable curry for him, telling him that this is a North Indian delicacy I was planning to share with him (in truth, that was some curry I was least interested in eating, so in a way, I was trying to get rid of it by feigning hospitality. Arre kya hai, apne Thailand mein to he must be eating lizards and cockroach eggs, so anything else I offered him must be better).

*Delved into the fridge, digging my nose into it and then making incoherent regret moans. Tsk tsk.

* Told him that since I had to keep awake at night studying, I came looking for some coffee, but it’s fine since I did not have milk.

Thankfully, my plan worked and he almost jumped at me, trying to strangle me for not letting him help the me in distress. “Oh no milk? Take it from me. And don’t ask me again, if you need for coffee, take it anytime you want”.

I started to act all coy and “no-no, thank you so much but I’ll survive without milk” stuff, but after he left and shut his door and before he could open the door again, telling me that he had changed his mind about the milk and being helpful, I grabbed at it.


Coffee be darned, I filled half the frying pan with milk (What? That was a mini-frying pan, so stop looking at me like that). Put it on low flame and left it that way. But what to do with milk? Think, think.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea hit me (no, I didn't run back to his room screaming Eureka Eureka, ahem !!!). I had this huge packet of cereal I have for breakfast that was quite misleadingly called “Honey bunches of oats with almonds”. I had bought it all greedy about the almond part, only to discover that there was one thin shaving of one-twentieth of an almond for every five spoonful of cereal. So the next 20 minutes was spent ripping open the cereal packet, hand picking the almond shavings, and putting it into the milk. Thankfully, I remembered mom telling someone always to add the sugar last while boiling milk so that it did not get charred.



So for the next 2 hours, the milk with tiny shavings of almond boiled. Two hours later when the milk had almost reduced to half its volume and had a brownish, thicker consistency to it post addition of the sugar, I knew my food was ready. I knew not what I had made of it and if it was an American version of payesh (payasam, kheer, or whatever you call it). But one mouthful and I was going mmmm mmmmmm mmmmm. I thought it tasted a little like rasmalai, a little like rabri (not the Rabri Devi wali Rabri you Laloo Lal, hehe), a little like kheer, and what not. The malai (what do you call it otherwise) had stuck to the walls of the pan with a thickness of almost a few millimeters, and ummmm… scraping it out with the steel spoon, the almond bits embedded in it was just…. just… just….Heavenly !!! It was then that I knew how a pregnant Ambar must have felt in Salaam Namaste making those orgasmic mating calls while having that Ben n Jerry’s something something dark chocolate ice cream.


I licked my lips like a greedy cat, and man, finally after 4am, it was the “sweetest” sleep I had. All puns intended.

Chalo, ab bahut kuch meetha ho gaya.