Roti

The roti sits in the middle of our meals, round, warm, breathing steam. It looks plain, almost nothing, but it carries more weight than the curries that surround it. My grandmother always said roti is not just food, it is dignity. I watched her roll the dough with tired palms, pressing it flat, shaping circles late into the night. She fed her children and also fed the memory of hunger that followed her from her village.
For some, roti is soft and brushed with ghee, stacked high beside palak paneer or chicken curry. For many, it is just one, dry and hard, dipped in water to soften before chewing. The same flour, the same fire, but never the same meal.
I remember eating at a friend’s house once. We sat at a long table with shining silver bowls. A servant carried rotis to us like the basket would never empty. I chewed slow, almost guilty, thinking of my own home. There, the rotis were counted out. One for me, one for my brother, half for my mother who always said she was not hungry. She said it so often it almost became true, though her thin frame told another story.
Roti is the language of class. The one puffed golden on a gas stove at home. The one slapped against a tandoor wall in a restaurant, carried out in cloth lined baskets. The one burnt at the edges, sold for five rupees at a roadside stall to a worker who eats standing. And the one that does not arrive at all for those who wait at ration shops long after the wheat is gone.
We talk about breaking bread together, about sharing, about equality. But roti does not lie. It shows where you belong. It shows in whose house the flame burns steady, and in whose house the dough is stretched thin. Who eats in silver, who eats in steel, who still waits with an empty hand.
Our own words reveal it too. Rozi roti. Roti kapda makaan. Roti stands for livelihood, for survival. Nobody ever says palak paneer makaan. Nobody dreams of paneer as life. Paneer is a dish, roti is survival.
Sometimes I think roti is a witness. It has sat through wars and borders, through hunger strikes and festivals. It sits quiet on a plate, soaking curry, catching fingerprints of oil and sweat. But it has more history folded inside than any spice or recipe.
In my mouth, roti is both comfort and reminder. Comfort of my grandmother’s kitchen, flour on her arms, her humming as she turned dough into circles. Reminder that today also many kitchens have no fire, many children sleep with a stomach that has forgotten wheat.
Maybe that is why roti is sacred. Not for gods, but for people. Not for temples, but for homes. Every piece torn is proof that we are still alive. Every piece missing is proof of the gap we still refuse to close.