Sweet 'n' Low

Every year the sweet making would begin as Christmas came closer. Mother [ Ok Ok Mummy ] had a lieutenant. Pavitra. The Hindi speaking maid. The General and the lieutenant. With three footsoldiers.Us. The General would plan the operation. Strategically. With labour intensive sweets distributed evenly with easier ones. The milkcream spaced away from the marzipan. So that the table space used for banging the forms, so that the milkcream fell like manna didn’t short change the multicoloured apples and oranges marzipan. The favourite of the footsoldiers were the rolypollies. { N: Sing Rolypoly. Plu –ies}. So while the cocnut tartlets were being filled we’d want to know if we could start on the rolypollies. Tommorow. When the date rolls were being rolled. Can we start on the rollypollies? Tommorow. The Lieutenant when similarly questioned would give us the same answer. Days would go by . The neoris would be ready. Cakes and nankaties. The latter would be dressed with bits of fruit preserve. Silver edible balls their crowning glory. Rollypollies? Tommorow. Tommorow. The General would promise. While checking that the Lieutenants command of English was accurate enough to read the numbers on the kitchen scale. And 180 gms of castor sugar was 180 and not 130.
With so much on their minds the rollypollies being the simplest were always left for the last. And so it went. Tommorow tomorrow. Or as the lieutenant would say. Kal. And when really harried repeat herself Kal kal. And that’s how the kul kul’s got their name.

Sweet dreams.

Christmas morning or Christmas eve. That’s when we exchange sweets. In plates or trays or boxes. Sweets that till last week were just items on a shopping list. Cashews for marzipan. Adulterated with just a smattering of peanuts if the bonus was not as large as Jo-boy thought it would be. Or if he bought the bottle of Chivas instead of the RC. [ No not Roman catholic , that’s for when you’re talking about religious persuasions.When it’s liquor RC is Royal Challenge. ] No one will know the difference. Ha. In your dreams Joboy. In your dreams. Because they will.
If there were less than ten different types on the plate the missus would be getting sympathetic glances for months. And diplomatic Aunty Mabel might even ask if everything was okay at work. If the count for variety reached double digits, quality would then be inspected. And if she tasted peanuts in the marzipan Mabel would condescendingly sympathise about no bonus in these recessionary times. While she handed over her plate of sweets. Wrapped up in serviettes that had Christmas scenes printed on them in gold leaf. Under the mattress with that. It’s too good to throw away.
Two types of cake. Fruit and sponge. Hell theres more rum in her cake than there was in my glass last night. Show off. All JoBoy had were two slices from the bar cake from Venus bakery. Which were trying hard to masquerade as home-made.
Dos. Dos that Jo Boy calls gram sweet. And to cut a fine point there is a 0.000097 % difference in the amount of sugar that differentiates East Indian gram sweet from Goan dos. JoBoy does’nt know or care. The courier who came to the door is why the milkcream is not the pristine white it should be. And poor misguided Joboy again thinks that milkcream by any other color is still milkcream. But the missus knows that if its not virginal snowy white it might as well be chikki. Enough with the sweets as she tries to steer Mabel towards how midnight mass if not held at midnight can’t be called midnight mass. But Mabel insists she tries her marshmallows. So soft . So pink. So nice. And her date roll, and her kul kuls
What?
Oh fudge Aunty Mabel. What I said was Oh Fudge. Chocolate is’nt it?
She looks at the missus funnily as she heads back up the stairs with our plate from Cheap Jack covered up with a serviette that came out of a box that had a picture of a Sardarji a Mussalman, a Brahmin pandit and other characters that proclaimed Jackson Tissues and National Integration in the same breath, while visions of sugar plums danced in our heads.