Down Under and Rolling Pins

How many of you have rolled out "chappatis"?

I remember when we were kids our moms would call us into the kitchen and permit us to roll out the last 2 or 3 chappatis. We would brandish the rolling pin with great pride and carefully get them done.

Dads would accept the offerings with a show of great enthusiasm and joke about how they ate their way through Africa or Australia given the pathetic shapes of our chappatis. My dad the born school teacher he was, never lost an opportunity to educate. Out would come the dog eared atlas and the coincidence between our chappati shape and one of the continents would be pointed out as no mean feat of achivement, some fact and figures about the said continents would be sneaked in. Obscure jokes like small wonder the chapatthi was like Africa because it was as mostly dry like the Sahara would be bandied about.

Come a generation later - my offspring wants to try roll out a chappati. The proud mom hands over the dough and rolling pin and watches. (She has secretly downloaded Google Earth).

"EEEE--OWWWWW," goes the said offspring when he is done, "This looks like a gross underwear!"