By Asif Khan, TwoCircles.net
Noor Jehan came to Kanpur from Bombay as a young bride. Living a pampered life till then, she wasn’t as well versed in domestic chores at that time. “Now I can prepare food for a party in a jiffy,” she talk while juggling around the kitchen, “but then it was different.”
It was the first Ramadan after getting married that her mother-in-law asked the dulhan to prepare zarda (a sweet rice dish). Even though Noor Jehan didn’t know the recipe, she took a chance. Not knowing better, she put a kilogram of sugar in a pot on the stove thinking it will become the syrup in which to cook the rice. The wafting fragrance of caramelising sugar which began enticing the family soon changed to signal disaster. Rushing into the kitchen, she remembers holding her head in shame: “The sugar had turned black like coal.”
TCN Series : Ramdan 1437