Majhot, Himachal Pradesh, India, 10 September 2016, 8:15 am



I’ve had Dalia for breakfast since childhood, in two different forms – The sweet porridge with milk and other accompaniments; and the salty one with onions and some other masala. I had only seen raw Dalia in shops, kept in barrels or of late, packed in packets. And sincerely, I really didn’t bother how it came to be, what was the source cereal, etc.

So Mela Ram Uncle found it really funny when I enquired of him like a naive child, “Dalia is made of wheat?”. He mocked me a little, gave a bowl full of wheat and barley to Asha Bhabhi, and asked her to remove the dirt.

And once Asha Bhabhi finished cleaning the stuff, Uncle took fistfuls of the same and ground them using a machine – There you are: Dalia

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And this breakfast of Sweet Dalia will be cherished by me for a long time. Such a simple thing that I took for granted in the city, and it provides me such immense pleasure. I don’t at all mind being a child here in the village. I can be naive to the limit of being considered stupid but still, everyone will happily explain things to me.