The knowledge that I, at long last, had at least a kilo of jaggery sitting in my pantry, impressed itself in my consciousness. Since my final trimester I had nursed a longing for til ladoo—not the harder variety, but the softer, melt-in-your-mouth kind. My tryst with gestational diabetes meant I had to defer this craving, put it off until it could be viably indulged. This present postpartum moment of seemingly insatiable hunger felt like fortuitous timing. All the ingredients were at hand in our kitchen. So, yesterday, in the early evening, during a wave of calm while our child was asleep, I put water to boil to make an adrak-saunf chai and on the other stove began roasting sesame. I had crumbled a large rock of jaggery and placed it in a processor along with peanuts. In retrospect I realise I should have first blitzed the roasted sesame to extract some oil that would have helped form the balls. In my greedy haste, and because I am still learning to re-inhabit time maternally, I ground everything in one go, forgetting also that the device in my kitchen that calls itself a processor isn’t half as intelligent as the Bajaj mixer I had back in Delhi. I ended up with what I would call a deconstructed til ladoo, its textural consistency resembling the crumble layer at the bottom of a cheesecake. I introduced into this deliciousness two tablespoons of ghee and allowed the heat from my fingers to bring it all together. It didn’t matter to me whether I had round balls or whether the texture was sandier, when I hurriedly put a morsel in my mouth to check for flavour I was gobsmacked. The buttery intensity of the ghee had intervened to provide a warm, nurturing undertone, while the sesame-jaggery-peanut crumble mix danced together to offer a nutty-salty-sweet-roasted nudge on the tongue. I filled two bowls with this concoction, used a spoon to press it down, and offered one to my partner before sitting myself down at the kitchen table with my hot chai and my portion. I devoured every teaspoon of it.

I wonder, today, if I offered myself this treat to reward my perseverance over the last four weeks. As a C-section mother, I felt as though I had been entrusted with care-giving, but with some of the essential tools held back from me. I have felt the time not so much as pulse in my empty uterus or as scab forming over surgical scar or as lochia transforming in colour and intensity. I have experienced each second of anticipation on the tips of my breasts as I made every effort to pump every three hours, all the while praying to a fictional milk goddess, asking her to intervene for me, to allow for enough flow as to satiate my child so I wouldn’t be spending almost 90 minutes at each feeding session, so I could be a bit more functional, a bit less sleep deprived.