Naani, biscuits banwane chalooooo! is how our visits to nanihal would begin. We would jump on the road, ear-to-ear smiles on our faces, somehow trying to convince naani to take us to the communal bakery without us having to enter the house. We knew that once everyone stepped inside, you can forget about the biscuits for the next two millennia, or hours, depending on how your level of craving worked. Inevitably, we had to concede every single time because the adults wanted to sit in a room, have tea, exchange pleasantries, and whatnot. We would run around the house, play cricket on the biscuit-shape-and-size terrace using a washing paddle and the cheapest lime green plastic ball. On occasion, we even scared off the monkeys by shouting louder than them.

After a while, someone would shout our names and call us down to eat something, usually samose that would burn the roof of our mouth. If we didn’t go after the third call, one of our almost-adult cousins would come up to the terrace to fetch us. Perhaps being trained into becoming a full adult; god forbid if we ever became like them. Whoever had the washing paddle in their hands would keep hitting the cousin’s head as they walked in front of us while climbing down the staircase.

Once the eating and talking were done and dusted, we would look at naani expectedly and she would point at the three tin ke dabbe sitting in a corner, all washed up and cleaned for their turn to go out in the world. All three had their own perks – one had a dent on its lid so it would never really close, the second had red markings splotched on its body, and the third had a broken handle. All had naana’s name etched on them in nastaliq punjabi.

We would pick up one each and start walking towards the bakery. On the way, our first objective was to buy milk. Thankfully, there was a family in the neighbourhood that reared buffaloes. Naani would talk to the aunties of that house and ask them to send someone along to the bakery with a dabba full of fresh milk and ghee. Then, on the way to the kirana store, we would try to hit each other’s bum with those dabbe, running up and down the street. Naani would keep telling us to stop, of course, but were we going to listen? Hehehe. Once at the kirana store, we would get those dabbe filled up with aata, sooji, and cheeni. Everything bought!

Usually, naani would sit for a while at the kirana store, drink some buttermilk, chat with the uncle, and buy us Kismi bars so we don’t pester her for a while. The wrappers were so shiny, and usually we would keep licking the white of the wrapper for five whole minutes after having eaten the toffee. After the refreshments, she would ask the shopkeeper uncle to call a rickshawala he trusted. We always had a little fight over who gets to sit in the front with naani and who at the back, dangling their feet for the entire trip.

The bakery wasn’t far, just a few streets away but time moved infinitely slower on that rickshaw. The houses passed by, all glued to each other from neenv to chhat, but almost like a tetris game gone wrong. Kids played steppu and kanche on the road. Cotton candy wale bhaiyya walked straight – and occasionally in spirals – ringing the bell in his hand every five seconds or so. Aunties sat on the porch of their houses, drying, oiling, delousing, tying up their hair, talking about things that would make all of them laugh at some point. What was not to love?

Then all of a sudden, we would hear naani’s voice, Chalo khoton, utro rikshe se. Wait, what? Did we reach the bakery already? Didn’t we just sit on the rickshaw two seconds ago? But then we would look at the place, so dark inside but for the magical flames coming out of the oven. Wood, burning. All the walls, soot.

A couple of people sat in a corner of the bakery, kneading the dough; two others sat next to them, making it biscuit-shaped-and-size on huge trays. Two of us could fit on one of those trays with comfort. I’m not just speculating, we tried it one day! We saw one of the trays being kept out to wash, snuck it to a distance which in hindsight wasn’t that far, laid it on the ground and laid down on it ourselves. We did end up spoiling our clothes because of all the ghee and crumbs but it was completely worth it. We smelled like biscuits now! All the adults who saw us pull this heist off were amused, of course.

There was this one qutub minar-like uncle among those people. He picked up the trays with one hand after the biscuit-shaped dough was placed on them and slid them into the oven one after another. We were afraid of him at first but he started feeding us hot biscuits after our second visit so we grew quite fond of him. Once, he even picked us up and made us sit on his shoulders. The world looked so small from up there, nani was so tiny! I wonder if we looked like ants to him from up there.

While the biscuits were being baked, we ran around the block, chased chickens to ask them questions in their puk-puk-pukao language but never really caught one, and even rolled in the dirt. Naani sat on a chair to do her daily ritual of reading the rosary beads. On some days, she would serendipitously get to meet some of her friends at the bakery. They would get lost in their own world after that, talking about their lives and families. Sometimes I wondered how the world of adults and the world of children were so different, even when we were doing the same thing – waiting for the biscuits to come out of the oven. But that thought would turn to smoke like every other thought when, after a while, the sweet scent of charred sugar would fill the air around us, and we would lie on the cot with anticipation, eyes closed, nose raised to the sky.