Chulhe ki daal

Kashi filled her dented old aluminium pot with a handful of yellow lentils, water and salt. She scraped off the papery skin of a withered ginger root and grated a fingertip worth of it into the pot. The mud stove burnt low, so she poked about in the timber sack. A couple of twigs were all that was left. She needed more or the bread would not be made for dinner. By the time Kashi returned with the firewood she'd fetched from the forest, the fire had burnt out into cinders, and the lentils had been simmering for about two hours. With her wooden paddle she whipped the yellowness until it was smooth. 
The dough was being kneaded when  Raghu came back with his bullock cart. Kashi slapped each ball of dough between her palms until they resembled thin discs and then she baked them over the open fire which now crackled with renewed mirth. When Raghu put the first morsel of daal dipped chapati into his mouth, he almost exclaimed with pleasure. He didn't need the heat of a chilly or the pungency of a raw onion to make his meagre meal palatable that night. He ate quietly, relishing the creaminess of the lentils and the smokiness of the bread as they blended on his tongue in a mysterious communion. Throughout the years to come, Kashi would often be questioned as to what made the lentils so special that night.