My Lifelong Struggle Of Explaining To People What 'Bhuknu' Is
If you know what 'bhuknu' is, we're best friends already.
It’s a Saturday evening. My parents, brother, and I are sitting around the dining table. The mood is celebratory; the drinks on the table make it obvious. We’re discussing the dinner plan for the night. The cook didn’t show up so there’s nothing prepared. My brother suggests that we could order in, but the unenthusiastic responses from the other three people on the table are enough for him to go back to focusing on the television. My mother asks if she should cook some rice. My father declines and suggests we make it a Maggi Night instead. Everyone enthusiastically agrees and the night carries on.
That’s pretty much how it’s always been in my house. When I was a child, Saturday evenings used to be a lonely affair because most of my friends would be out for dinner with their families. In my house, we barely ever ate out. This was never due to any financial or health constraints. It just wasn’t something any of us were interested in. Doesn’t mean we were immune to the burst of casual and fine dining restaurants around us. We’d order in on weekends sometimes. We used to eat pizzas a lot, but for the most part, our dinners were homely. We consumed the traditional dal-roti-sabzi-chawal combo and went to bed satisfied.
On the rare occasions that we did choose to step out, we’d never know where to go. My dad would turn the car ignition on and chirp, “Where to?”
The response was dead silence. We’d just end up driving around the neighborhood, each one of us trying to rack our brains to come up with the name of a decent restaurant. Maybe someplace that one of our friends or acquaintances might have mentioned but nothing fruitful ever came of it. We’d drive around for a good 15-20 minutes before the helplessness led to a quarrel between my parents. The next thing you know we’re in our parking lot and heading back home.
So, I’m not sure what it was but dining out just never seemed to come naturally to us. Something that hasn’t changed even today.
In all honesty, I’m not sure how much responsibility my brother and I ought to take for our preferences. Maybe if my parents were more enthusiastic about eating out then we would be too. Maybe we were just never exposed to that experience in the same way that other children around us were. Maybe the reason that I cannot pick food off the menu is because it still feels like a new, unfamiliar, anxiety-inducing experience. Maybe the reason why we, as a family, always end up going to the same restaurant (on the rare occasion that we want a break from home food) is because none of us ever developed familiarity in that space.
I don’t think it bothers me. Apart from the bit where I never learnt how to use a fork and knife (something, I believe, everyone is forced to learn when they eat at restaurants) and to this day, I STRUGGLE in a mortifying way. For the most part, I’ve made peace with the fact that food is just not our language. We never have people over for elaborate meals. If someone’s coming over, we’ll get something made or order in. My parents were working parents, so we always had a cook. In my head, food is a very functional requirement and not necessarily a source of pleasure. Just something you need three times a day because you will die without it. As far as it’s palatable, it’s fine.
Unlike the rest of us, my dad is relatively more passionate about his meals but that’s not a dominant personality trait. Over the years, he’s learnt to go with the flow.
Like I said, food has never been our language. And yet, every time my parents (or I) visit my grandparents, my mouth starts watering at the thought of some of the delicacies that my grandmother (Dadi) makes. Like all grandmothers, my Dadi too is a great cook in her own unique way. Coming from me, that’s a big deal because my taste buds are not even that evolved.
My personal favourite from my Dadi’s kitchen would be the melt-in-the-mouth aate ke laddoo, a unique homemade namkeen mix that has always found appreciation everywhere I take it, and the delicious kadhi that always results in me eating twice the number of rotis I usually would.
For the past few years, every time I bite into one of her godly creations, I think to myself, I should get the recipe from her. In 2017, she’d visited us for a few weeks. During her three week stay, I convinced her to teach me how to make the laddoos. Not only was I terrible at it, but I also don’t remember anything she might have told me about the process or the recipe. And this is something that bothers me a lot. (Where are my unnecessary note-taking skills when I need them??)
Like I mentioned earlier, there’s not much that I associate with the kitchen in my parents’ house. Except for a mid-sized plastic container that holds a yellow powdery substance called bhuknu in it. Bhuknu-roti is kind of a thing in our house. It’s the perfect last-minute midnight or evening snack and even dinners for nights when we don’t want to put too much effort. It’s also the simplest, blandest thing you could eat but if made right, it can be the reason for your (my) existence.
Now, obviously, bhuknu-roti only tastes as good when it’s consumed in a certain way. By which I mean that the roti (phulka, not chapati) should be fresh off the pan, very hot. Then you take a spoonful of ghee and generously spread it on the roti. Then you take half a spoon (or more, depending on your taste) of the aforementioned bhuknu and sprinkle it evenly on the roti. Now fold the roti from the centre and gently rub the inner surfaces against each other so that the bhuknu spreads nicely. Best consumed with a glass of water because it’s actually quite dry.
To this day, I do not know what bhuknu is made of. I’ve never bothered to find out. All I know is the obvious - that it’s a powdered mixture of some spices. Very salty, very yummy. In our house, it’s sourced from where my Dadi lives and restocked every time we visit her in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. I grew up in Maharashtra and I can say this with 200% certainty that no one here knows what bhuknu is. Okay, not no one but most people don’t get it. Which is okay, obviously. I’ve spent years trying to explain the concept of bhuknu-roti to people and it has been a fruitless endeavor each time but I do not regret it one bit.
(Also, I just Google-d it though so it’s not as obscure as I am making it sound. It’s just not as popular where I live, LOL.)
It is unreal how attached I am to bhuknu. When I briefly moved away for college, I took some with me. Did I consume it? No. I was too busy doing other things. Yet, I needed the little box of bhuknu to sit in a small corner of my room. In a way, bhuknu was a reminder of home and all things warm and comfortable.
I don’t eat bhuknu-roti that much anymore. Nobody in our house does. Yet, we continue to keep a box full of it in the kitchen. Sometimes, it gets over. Other times, we end up throwing it because we can’t seem to recall the last time we’d refilled the box. Either way, we have never stopped bringing bhuknu back from where my Dadi lives. I think we’re all equally attached to it in a sweet, inexplicable way.
It bothers me that one day I’ll run out of bhuknu permanently. One day, which could be sooner than later, we’ll stop refilling the container due to any reason and thereafter, it’ll only exist in my memory. One day, I’ll try to explain what bhuknu is to someone and when they don’t get it, I won’t be able to end the conversation with, “Come home, I’ll make you taste it.”
I’m hoping this is not going to be my last post of the year. I want to send out one more newsletter this year to keep up with my annual tradition of self-indulgent year recaps. So, see you soon. Hopefully.