The Cookie Tin

The meeting was in a luxury hotel. Sunita hesitantly accepted her host’s offer of a cup of tea feeling extremely guilty about the fact that it cost almost 100 times more than what it cost in a street side teashop.  But the complimentary cookies that was served with the tea could not be found in any teashop in the city. As she bit into the handmade cookies that took the shape of the hand that moulded them, it brought back memories from half a century ago.  They were exactly like the cookies Sunita’s grandmother got made at the neighbourhood baker. Tinfuls of handmade cookies awaited the grandchildren when they arrived at their grandmother’s place for the summer vacation. The children would open the large aluminium tin resting on the floor as they passed the room in which it was stored and pick up as many as they wanted to. Sunita was never hungry at lunch time for the simple reason that she would have been nibbling them throughout the day. At teatime, they were served with white butter. Colourful tins of branded biscuits, on the other hand, were stacked away on the top shelf out of the reach of the children and served only to special guests. Sunita didn’t much care for those factory made biscuits they were handed out whenever they had visitors. But she would start worrying when the tin started emptying.  As soon as Grandmother noticed the rapidly depleting tin, she would start preparing for the next lot without inquiring into the reasons for the tin running out of cookies.  

Sunita had assumed that the tin got filled on its own until she noticed Grandmother pulling out the weighing scales  Grandmother weighed wholewheat flour, sugar, and butter in equal quantities one by one and packed them in small sacks that she put inside the empty tin. She measured similar amounts of white flour, sugar, and butter for another kind of cookies that were puffed up and melted in one’s mouth and put them in another tin. Then she instructed Sunita’s cousin Sanjay to take them to the neighbourhood baker and bake them following her strict instructions. Sanjay was asked to keep an eye on the baker as he mixed the dough lest he should steal the ingredients. Sunita was happy to traipse down the bakery with Sanjay to watch her favourite cookies being made. They left at forenoon for the baker’s shop. The shop was barely functional consisting of a gigantic earthen oven and a wooden platform where the baker rolled out the dough and arranged rows of cookies on an aluminium tray. A wooden bench had been kept outside the shop where the customers could sit while the cookies were being made. The baker was a nondescript figure dressed in a simple white kurta and pyjama covered in floor. He silently measured the ingredients that Sanjay pulled out of the two tins and told them to wait outside.

Then he disappeared behind the wooden platform and started mixing the ingredients to make a soft dough for the flaky cookies and hard one for the wholewheat finger shaped cookies.  The flour had to be set aside for some time. In the meanwhile, the baker poured fresh coal into the earthen oven  and got the fire going. Then he pulled out a number of trays that he lined with a coating of fat. Once the trays were ready he tested the dough to check if it was ready to be rolled out. Sunita watched him fascinated as he rolled out layers of dough and shaped it with his fingers before arranging it in rows on the lined trays.  The trays were slowly lowered in the openings in the earthen oven.  Sunita could smell the cookies being baked. About half an hour later, they were pulled out and placed on the wooden platform. The baker invited Sunita and Sanjay to taste one of each to make sure if they were done. They happily bit into the cookies hot from the oven and assured him they tasted fine. But they had to be cooled down before being packed in the large tins. The baker once again weighed the cookies and told them to inform Grandmother that nothing had been stolen. Sanjay paid the baker the charges for his labour and they began to make their way back home.

It was noon by this time. As Sanjay found it difficult to balance the cookie tins on his bicycle, Sunita decided to give him a hand by holding on the tin from one side.  They stopped under a tree to balance the tins and drink sugarcane juice sold at the street corner. By the time they reached home, they were drenched in sweat. It had taken them longer to get home than other days since Sanjay could not ride the bicycle with the two tins and had to wheel it down. Grandmother stood waiting at the door looking very worried and let them in. Handing them glasses of freshly made lime juice, she opened the tins and pulled out each kind of cookie to check if they tasted right. Biting into the cookie, she grunted with satisfaction. The wholewheat cookies were soft but crunchy. The puffed ones melted in the mouth.  The smell of the freshly baked cookies wafted into the  house pulling out the rest of the children to demand their share. After lunch you may have as many as you like, Grandmother promised smiling indulgently.  They meekly followed her into the kitchen to finish their lunch but were too full to ask for the dessert.  Grandmother marshalled them into their rooms for their afternoon nap. It was soon tea time. Grandmother had heaped the cookies in a large dish and invited them to have as many as they wishes provided that they emptied their glasses of milk.

Sunita’s vacation had ended and the family was leaving for the railway station. She was going to miss Grandmother and her cousins. Once  the train pulled out of the platform, Mother opened the tin of cookies and handed a few to her.  The cookies smelt of Grandmother’s house and travelled all the way to theirs.  

Sunita heard her hostess speak to her as if from a long distance, “How are the cookies”? ”Mm mm, exactly the way I remember them”, she murmured travelling through time.