Completely Off My Rocker!

© by 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Ah, the rocking chair. 

Here is The Rocker, as it has been called at our home. Technically, it’s actually a glider. It sits high atop our furniture hierarchy due to its age rather than accuracy of the nomenclature, outranking almost all others, even the cuckoo clock. 

The Rocker arrived at our home from a place called The Oak Gallery three decades ago. Back then, there was no internet, no cell phones and furniture shopping required putting on pants and driving. Life was simpler. This furniture shop, and others like it was a physical brick and mortar reality where you would savor the ambience, linger on, testing each piece by sitting on it, feeling the warmth, soaking its aura. You could see, touch, sniff and indulge. There was no concept of faraway e-commerce entities with colorful pictures of glamorous models draped around furniture in impossible poses. Also missing, any claims and starred reviews by wood_loving_girl or chairman_rocky_III dissing or gushing about the product that would leave one confused about its actual quality, functionality, delivery timing, costs and return policies. A trip in person to visit The Oak Gallery some 35 minutes away was needed. A place that smelled of old-timey wood polish on real wood, not near-wood pieces recreated from pressed sawdust or faux fabric sprayed with real chemicals. Oak really meant thick oak, something you could feel in your hands. Real. Solid. Unapologetic. Robust. Made for life.

This Rocker had a patterned, dark green seat cushion, plush and steady, with a matching back. Its texture suggested permanence before we quite understood what that would mean. We fell in love with it immediately. We went and picked it a month or so before our oldest was born, on a day that felt ordinary until it wasn’t. Loaded it in the back of our 3-door hatchback, after folding down the rear seat. Due to its size, the hatch wouldn't quite close but we managed to bring it home, tied down with string and a slow, careful drive back praying that the laws of physics would remain cooperative. By that evening, a snowstorm rolled in hard and fast, an early one that winter season, turning the world hushed and white. Inside, The Rocker was placed close to the fireplace in our living room, with much arrangement and re-arrangement of the other mismatched pieces in our living room. Near a real fireplace with smoke and flames, crackling wood that occasionally sparked and hissed when the trapped volatile matter in its cavities expanded and tried to escape. I sat there that evening and rocked, back and forth, holding anticipation more than anything else. Stranger, our cat, lay alternately curled and sprawled nearby in front of the fire. He had carefully inspected and sniffed his approval of the new furniture and the new layout. It followed the cat's personal mantra, his mission in life, that of locate warmth, occupy warmth, follow warmth. A new warm spot had emerged on a little rug in front of the fireplace. When the fireplace wasn't lit, he would move to wherever the now elusive sunshine seemed to be streaming in from the windows.

The Rocker was more expensive than one at the other "value" furniture store we had looked. Bryan, the owner, saw our hesitation as we were still trying to make up our minds. He offered a zero-interest 12-month plan through a tiny, local, no-name lender to pay it off, we accepted it. The lender sent us the paperwork a few weeks later. We started the monthly payments. In those days, it was by mail with physical checks and payment coupons ripped carefully from a payment booklet that looked like a checkbook. According to our calculations, we were done 12 months later. To our shock, the lender sent us a vaguely threatening demand letter stating that even though they were late with their paperwork, interest on this loan had started accruing the day we took The Rocker out of the store. And that we owed them interest at some exorbitant rate and penalty for late payment, which added up to more than half the original price. 

These were the days of landlines and, of course, The Oak Gallery would be out of the "free" region and part of the "long-distance" calling area, cheaper in the evenings after 7pm. Thus the need for another personal visit to The Oak Gallery during its business hours with some "long overdue" visit to the nearby big shopping mall, I was informed. When we visited the next weekend, we found Bryan in the background, looking a bit sheepish. Enter another character in this drama. He lumbered over with confidence in his manner with a voice that came from both his girth and his role there. He puffed out his chest and introduced himself, “ 'Ay! Call me Fat Tony,” as if the name alone came with its own theme music. 

The guy had a comically large head. Each nod was understated but emphatic, that mystical side-to-side-but-also-yes-no-maybe motion that somehow conveyed agreement, authority, and mild disappointment all at once. It was like East Coast and the Midwest had formed a brief cultural alliance with desi head bobble right there. I politely declined to call him what he had suggested, and told him I would rather call him Big Tony. He got a real belly-laugh out of this. What I pieced together later was that Bryan had gotten into a pickle in some backroom card games, resulting in a sizeable gambling debt that he couldn't pay off in time. Mr. Fat Big Tony had been dispatched by an East Coast group to ensure collection help manage cash flow at The Oak Gallery.

I explained my situation to Big Tony. He nodded in agreement and picked up the phone, dialed and said " 'Ay!" The Joisey accent was turned up to eleven, every vowel stretched, every sentence daring you to argue with him. His hands were in constant motion, slicing the air, pointing at invisible ghosts, conducting an orchestra only he could hear. By the time he finished talking, you weren’t entirely sure what he had said to jaboney the person at the other end, but you felt it in your gut. Loosely, very loosely translated, let's say it was a lecture on treating people right, mia famiglia Good Customers, capisce? Bushy eyebrows animated, his disappointment evident, about shoddy practices, less than happy Customer Experience of dese noice goys such good folks. Take it from an expert on debt collections and deadbeats. Believe him, paisano. One could almost envision that person at the other end of the landline standing, sitting down, shrinking, nodding back vigorously, instinctively. Mr. Fat Big Tony hadn’t just entered his life or Bryan's shop, he was streamlining the entire operation, shady debt servicing included. 

Big Tony hung up the phone and waved us over to the cashier's desk. He informed us that the goombah local lender had wholeheartedly agreed to waive off any and all additional charges, penalties, etc. He acknowledged our thanks with a fuhggedaboutit nonchalant shrug and moved on to help another customer. We lingered around for a bit, listening to his smooth patter in the background. Mr. Big Tony definitely seemed to know his way around furniture. We never heard another peep from the lender. Nor did we ever see Fat Big Tony again on future visits for other furniture shopping.

That rocking chair learned quickly what it was for. It helped rock our baby boy to sleep after his arrival, held in parental arms. A couple of years later, our baby girl arrived, colicky, very fussy. All of us were quite cranky in the evenings now with the incessant high-pitched screams, during what became known as "the witching hours." The Rocker held sometimes one, sometimes both little ones at once during those days, balanced carefully in the crooks of both arms, which were learning on the job. Fortunately, that phase lasted only about a year. The Rocker has borne witness to lullabies sung off-key, whispered secrets, frustrated sighs, loud arguments and soft purrs. It was the happy place for that particular quiet relief that only exists in the middle of the night after a long day. A place for refreshing nap, for dozing off without spousal judgement. A place to park oneself, drowsily loosening one's belt after indulging at the Thanksgiving feast. Dreamily nursing a suitable soporific drink. It has held joys gently, and griefs when they came, the hundredth reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar or A Giraffe and a Half, just as enthusiastic as the first one. It suffered quietly all the determined decorating from occasional crayons wielded by the younger budding artist who expressed herself generously all over including the walls, the rugs and generally treated every surface in her three-foot high world as a canvas. All the many, many small, unremarkable moments that turned out to be special memories, the ones that matter most. 

And like Mary's little lamb, wherever the family went, The Rocker went too, of course. Across states. Across cities. Into living rooms that looked nothing alike. Different floors, different rugs. Sofas of different colors, comfort-levels and contours came and went. Styles changed, tastes evolved, décor followed whatever chapter folded and unfolded in our family's book at the time. It sat near fireplaces that were real and the ones strictly ornamental, only moving slightly, laterally to accommodate the seasonal appearances of the family Christmas Tree. 

It stayed mum as a small glass of milk and cookies were left nearby for a ho-ho-ho'ing old man and carrots for some reindeer with a peculiar nose. Expressionless during Christmas mornings about the visit of the mystery man, spying on chidren, a compulsive list-maker. Strangely, unlike others, this visitor apparently didn't ring doorbells, preferring to enter via the chimney so the fireplace could not be lit. The stress-relief was quite palpable on all little faces in the morning, the ones who had apparently squeaked in as late additions on the Good List with a huge last-minute, desperate spurt of "Being Good," whatever that was. Such visits were further confirmed by cookie crumbs and tiny amount of milk in the cup, that these offerings had indeed refreshed the intended parties during their incredible hectic overnight dash, including those homes where he left lumps of coal. The Rocker always occupied the same central role, patiently anchoring the impatient, frenzied ripping off the giftwrap, like it had been waiting all season long. Unchanging. Steady.

The Oak Gallery has since disappeared in the Great Big Strip Mall in the Sky, becoming one of those places you mention and then have to explain to youngsters shopping through some App. Sign of our times, although in this case, more likely, due to Bryan's penchant for that one big last bet that did not pay off big. Whenever we drive on the State Highway 31 going north, one of us says something about that furniture place in the strip mall. The Rocker has stayed. The green fabric has softened a bit with age. The oak has lost a bit of the sheen, polished by many hands, by years, by living. It looks a little weary now, not completely worn out yet, just... experienced. Reminiscing. Still going strong. Still warm. Still unmistakably itself.

The baby birds have now flown the nest, visiting only sporadically. These days, The Rocker has been claimed by our cats. An asset appropriation that our previous cat Stranger would have wholeheartedly approved with his penchant for warm spots. Maxwell, the older cat waits patiently but pointedly, hovering nearby whenever I sit on it. His eyes locked on me, sometimes pushing with gentle nudges, posture stiff with expectation. The moment I get up, he licks his paws and leaps up, triumphant, settles in. In his rightful spot for his much needed evening snooze. Often, the younger feline Maui joins him, perching on top like a lookout. Then come the not-so-quiet territorial disputes, full of side-eyes and flicking tails, with their front paws swiping at each other, occasional hisses and growls. 

Ownership has been decided with certainty. It does not belong to me any more. I sit elsewhere and watch, accepting it all. The Rocker still glides, the mechanism not as smooth, a bit slower, but less creaky than mine. Still near our fireplace, now an "efficient, no-maintenance" gas appliance with flames which flicker on ceramic logs, fake woody texture, no crackles unless you turn a speaker on, no unexpected sparks flying, startling the snoozing cats. The Living Room around it looks different, but the feeling remains the same, waiting. It's a quiet recognition that The Rocker hasn’t lost its purpose. It has simply remained steadfast. It has outlasted The Oak Gallery by decades and the shady lender that financed it. The babies don't need rocking but the exhausted parents seem to need it more. A silent witness as our life's story unfolded in different stages. It reminds me that constancy has its own kind of beauty. That some things, if you’re lucky, stay with you, quietly doing their job through every chapter in the book, a few more pages to unfold, before The End. Is it just me, or am I completely off my rocker now, no longer on The Rocker? 

 The Correct Dosage

on the World Dosa Day, March 3rd 2026

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(Inspired by a friend who posted picture of lace-edged crepes made with ghee, coconut and tomato chutneys and sambar in a ceramic bowl arranged just so.)

My first memory of a dosa is not one of a perfectly plated one for unsocial media post. It is the sound of humongous stone lodha (roller) on the gigantic kitchen silauti (grindstone) at dawn. Before I learned the word “fermentation,” I learned about patience, as in waiting for dosa. 

The quest usually started with my grandma suggesting madrasi khana, soon. The entire household would spring into action. Rice and urad daal would be soaked overnight in large vessels, swelling quietly in the dark. At first light, they would be lifted out in batches and taken to the silauti, where our household help, perpetually grumbling yet impossibly faithful to the ritual, pushed the heavy lodha in impatient arcs. The rhythm was ancient. Grain surrendered to paste. Water was added in cautious trickles. The batter grew smooth but not too smooth, a certain coarseness was respected, texture carried the weight of refined rituals. By the evening, the kitchen smelled faintly alive. The batter had risen, breathing softly, reaching that precise sourness my mother could judge with a glance and a fingertip. She never measured; she listened. The large cast-iron tawa (round griddle) was placed on the chulha and heated to the point where a droplet of water would dance on it. A cloth dipped in oil passed swiftly over its surface, not too much, not too little. Just enough.

Then the pour. A ladleful of batter dropped in the center and, swift circular motion of her wrist, spiraling outward, thinning with each round, until it became almost translucent. I used to hold my breath during that movement. The dosa would hiss, edges lifting slightly, freckles of gold appearing before deepening into that perfect brown crispness that shattered delicately under touch. Inside would be the alchemy of potatoes boiled earlier, peeled while still warm, mashed and folded into soft pasty consistency with spices that bloomed in hot oil. Mustard seeds crackling, a dash of turmeric, peanuts or cashews, a pinch of salt, a little hint of tamarind. Green chilies added with quiet warning. Curry leaves snapped fresh from the yard perfumed the air. The filling was soft, generous, forgiving.

We waited eagerly with our steel thalis. For the food, quietly competing for the length of the cylindrical perfection, leaning dangerously close to the stove, measuring with our eyes as to whose dosa extended that extra millimeter beyond the fold. The longest one meant something unspoken, a fleeting coronation as the favorite child, at least for that day. We believed the geometry of batter determined love. Mother would pretend not to notice our calculations, though sometimes, just sometimes, the circle she spread for one of us would be suspiciously expansive.

Idlis often steamed nearby, plump, cloudlike, emerging from their molds in the big, recently acquired Prestige Princess pressure cooker hissing with quiet dignity. Sambar simmered, its tamarind depth wrapping around lentils, drumsticks and other vegetables in a liquid embrace. Coconut chutney, ground fresh, cool and pale, tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves, completed the trinity. The table was never ornate, but it was abundant.

Dosa, like the proverbial "success" has many fathers, and millions of "authentic" claimants of its roots throughout every region of India's South. For our family though, madrasi khana arrived by way of affection, through a rented portion of our ancestral home in Patna and the quiet dignity of a couple from Kerala. Mr. Menon had been posted naarth to Patna during those in-between years when the British were leaving but their paperwork lingered. A civil servant of careful habits and measured words, he and his wife came to live in our house with their young son, Mun. They were tenants only technically. In every other way, they became kin, the kind that forms not through blood but through proximity, shared festivals, borrowed sugar, and evenings of unhurried conversation with cups of chai in the shade under a whirring fan on a scorching Patna summer afternoon.

Mr. Menon or Menon saheb was a little older than my father and uncle, and somehow that alone made him an elder. In a house that already had opinions in abundance, his counsel carried a particular gravity. My father and uncle would sit straighter when Menon saheb talked, respectful, listening without interruption. Advice about careers, marriages, land, tempers, all passed through him as though he were an unofficial ombudsman of our sprawling clan.

If Menon saheb was the statesman, Mrs. Menon, known universally as Mun ki Ma was the Cultural Ambassador of the South. Younger by perhaps less than a decade, my mother and my aunt, barely out of their early teens then and newly married into the household, looked up to her with a mix of awe and mild terror. Their first introduction to what the family loosely called madrasi khana came not from restaurants or cookbooks, but from the patient, exacting lessons in the kitchen. Mun ki ma would begin at the beginning. Always at the beginning. Rice and urad dal soaked separately. Proportions mattered. The grinding must be neither too fine nor too coarse. The batter must ferment “until it smells right,” she would say bringing her fingertips to her nose, which was of no practical help to two earnest North Indian girls trying gamely to decode sourness aroma index.

She had only so much patience to spare. “waaisa naahin ji!" (Naat like that!) she would correct gently, then less gently. The ladle must move in a confident spiral to spread the dosa thin. The idli batter must be aerated but not bullied. The sambar required a tempering that bloomed without burning. Curry leaves were not garnish; they were exclamation marks. My mother would recount those sessions many years later while making dosa in our kitchen when I was a very young lad, the humiliation of the innumerable dosa attempts that fell apart or were not paper-thin, the triumph of the very first one that emerged crisp and evenly golden. My aunt learned to coax idlis into cloudlike softness from huge idli molds in large pots of boiling water. Mun ki Ma, with a sigh that carried equal parts exasperation and pride, slowly admitted my mom into the fellowship of those who made madrasi khana, theekkey say (Keralite accented Bhojpuri for "praaperly").

Eventually, retirement arrived like a closing file. Menon saheb folded his life in Patna with the same neatness he applied to official correspondence. The Menon family returned to Keralam, as he always called it, with the soft regret in his voice that suggested home - janmanhoomi or karmabhoomi, was not just a place, and not that one ever left. He has long since joined what I like to think of as the Great Big Civil Services in the Sky, still filing reasoned opinions, still restoring order to other-worldly disputes. Mun ki Ma left behind her special cast-iron tawa and other formidable-looking pital (brass) pots and pans she used for madrasi khana to my mom, much to dismay of my aunt. Mun ki ma is surely in a Celestial Kitchen, correcting some flustered young northern brides on the angle of her ladle, instructing them on how to achieve the crispiest dosas and the fluffiest idlis, insisting that fermentation is not science but religion, love and faith combined.

A few years later, I arrived at the hallowed halls in Kharagpur, Dedicated to the Service of the Nation. My home for the next five years, Nehru Hall Mess was exactly that, a mess. It was a state of despair a where any concept of acceptable food including dosa suffered much abuse and torture. Sambar was served twice a day, each recipe unique, never duplicated, guaranteed to eradicate any and all taste-buds. The only saving grace was an occasional uthapam at Nayyar's, which was only affordable at the beginning of each semester when a few loose coins still jingled in our pockets. Usually after careful consideration of our finances and facing stiff competition from Waldies, Far East or Anarkali, the required dosa dosages remained unmet.

Eventually, I ended up in Buffalo, NY in the early 1980s. It was a place where much was happening, specially in wintertime, usually cold, sideways. But I am talking about a very particular famine: the complete and devastating absence of decent desi food, a proper dosa. In the birthplace of Chicken Wings and Beef on kimmelweck, the crisp, golden ambassador of South Indian cuisine simply did not exist in any form worthy of the name. We searched. We drove around. We tried some restaurants across the lake whose menus promised authenticity but delivered something closer to soggy mess that had lost their will to live. A decade passed. Ten long years without that fragile architecture of fermented batter and the resulting lace-edged, crackling miracle that shatters at first touch,

Life relocated us again, this time as a couple, to a small, semi-rural Midwestern town. Culturally charming, yes. Peaceful, certainly. But from a culinary perspective? A wasteland. A prairie of tasteless casseroles, boiled potatoes and pot-roasts. A desert where the words madrasi khana would have sounded like a medical affliction. Hope had long since packed its bags. And then we met the Rajas. It happened the way most important friendships happen, some combination of proximity, animated conversation, and the gravitational pull of food during potlucks among young couples. Introductions were made. Smiles exchanged. And somewhere between “Hello” and “Welp! Come over sometime,” a realization dawned.

We discovered that our friend Rukmani was not merely someone who cooked South Indian food. She was a maestro, not a weekend dilettante. The kind of cook whose kitchen contains mysterious jars with handwritten labels, fermentation schedules that rival NASA launch timelines, and techniques learned not from cookbooks but from grandmothers whose disapproval could curdle milk at twenty paces. Mrs. Yours Truly, in her own right a formidable culinary force had met her soul sister. A Northern Indian Delights Diva who already had dabbled in some of the Southern Indian culinary magic, she was the guardian of the sacred arts of golgappa assembly with acknowledged street-food creds. Her samosa reconstruction was legendary. They embraced each other in spirit like long-lost sisters who believed chutneys should have personality and who treated spice levels as a matter of principle.

What followed was less a dinner invitation and more a summit meeting. The two culinary maestros combined forces along the kitchen counter. The husbands retreated instinctively to a safe observational distance, like spectators in a cricket stadium witnessing a rare win on a foreign tour, an extraordinary phenomenon in those days. We poured ourselves potent potables and watched history unfold. Polite conversation led to curiosity which led to full-scale trading between the two ladies who acknowledged each others expertise implicitly. Closely guarded family recipes were mentioned in hushed tones. Techniques were demonstrated. Special tools were produced from cupboards like ceremonial artifacts. Words such as “proper fermentation,” “tempering,” and “don’t ever skip this step” floated through the air with the gravity of ancient wisdom. A mystery spice blend called "gunpowder" entered the family lexicon. 

Meanwhile, something exquisite was happening on the stove. Batter met hot iron and sizzled. The first dosa emerged like a sunrise, paper-thin, golden brown, impossibly crisp, with edges so delicate they seemed almost theoretical. It landed on the plate with a sound that can only be described as edible applause. Then came another. And another. Soon the dining table was receiving offerings as if manna were being dispatched directly from the culinary heavens. Crispiest dosas. Filled with the tastiest masala. Spiciest sambar that could wake a sleeping civilization. Fluffiest idlis that appeared to defy basic physics.

The husbands abandoned any pretense of moderation. At some point I realized I had loosened my belt. Not out of defeat but as a tribute. A ceremonial acknowledgment of greatness. Several pounds were gained in a single sitting, with no regrets, I was wondering if dosa ever had been considered for a rikishi (sumo-wrestler) diet. Later, as true culinary diplomacy demands, Mrs. Yours Truly reciprocated in her cucina. Out came the ingredients for her Northern spectacle: from-scratch golgappa and samosa chaat. Hollow puris, spiced potato curry, chicken makhani, and chutneys so vibrant they could probably solve geopolitical disputes.

The husbands watched with the same reverence they had experienced earlier with awe, now facing a darker outcome. Our carefully maintained weight management strategies collapsed like poorly prepared papad. Dietary regimes were surrendered unconditionally. Gym memberships were forgotten, with vague vows of future participation. But we gained something far more important than discipline. A benchmark. From that evening forward, Rukmani’s dosa became the gold standard. The reference point against which every future dosa, homemade or restaurant-made, would be judged.

Thus was born the Rukmani Scale, more conceptual than numeric. A perfectly acceptable dosa elsewhere might score a respectable NQR (Not Quite Rukmani's) to NLR (Nothing Like Rukamni's). A very good restaurant dosa at best might reach BNLR (But Not like Rukmani's.) But the original? The crisp, delicate, life-restoring creation that ended a decade-long famine for Buffalo refugees living in a Midwestern culinary prairie? That remains the only known dosa to achieve the perfect 10 on the Rukmani Scale. All others, so far, are still trying. 

Today, dosa travels the globe. It is reinvented, rebranded, filled with cheese, chocolate, quinoa, rajma, szechuan stir fry, paneer or ceviche (horror!). Downed with concoctions not even pretending to be sambar. These abominations are celebrated obscenely via deafeningly loud reels that I call confusion cuisine by obnoxious TikTok influencers. But in my mind, the only one worthy of any soul remains that patient overnight creation, rice and daal consenting to time, stone yielding to effort, batter trusting warmth, with its ancient Keralam roots. On World Dosa Day, I do not crave innovation. I crave the low hum of that kitchen, the grumble of stone, the sizzle of batter meeting iron, the fierce childhood mathematics of measuring love in millimeters. It was proof that someone had woken before dawn, and chosen to make something beautiful for us, over and over again. And that no matter the dosa length, we were all equally favorite for mom. But only one was more equally favorite than the others.