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.