Sugarbread 👩‍👦A sweet wholesome reading

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Author: Balli Kaur Jaswal

Sugarbread 🥯

“It’s food. It’s not a meal,” she said. “I hope I’ve taught you that there’s a difference. Like a house and a home.” 

And I knew why. Everybody wants to prove they are right all along, even if the whole world says they’re not.

“When you don’t care, the person eating can tell. If you are angry or upset about something, your bitterness seeps into the food like a poison. It enters the mouth of the person eating, and then they become angry and upset.”

I noticed him because he was the only one who smiled, but in a slightly crooked way that made him look cheeky.

She didn’t eat because she was practising ignoring her appetite.

“I shouldn’t be listening to their family problems any more than they should be listening to ours, don’t you think?” he asked me. For some reason, it had never occurred to me until then that the other families in our block had similar problems that seemed larger than life in their private worlds.”

I like nothing more than a soul touching mother daughter story, an immigrant in a foreign country, with smells of delicious home cooking and daily dishes, a flashback and fwd moving story. A story that takes you to past to make peace with it. A lesson that we all need to learn. To let things have no power over you. You let go. 

Life will be tough but sometimes you eat something sweet and hope for a better day, the next day. This book will stay for a long time with me, just like the taste of a sweetbread!

We played “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” One person was named Mr Wolf and they had to stand against the wall with their back facing the rest of us. “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” we cried out, and Mr Wolf would call out a time. We crept closer to Mr Wolf according to the number of hours he called out. If he said it was three o’clock, then we took three steps. The moment anybody got close enough to Mr Wolf, they had to try to touch the wall and run before he tagged them back. The person who got tagged became the next Mr Wolf.

I had written my signature phrase: “Drink hot coffee, drink hot tea. Burn your lips and remember me!” I heard

Oh the beautiful childhood games. A child, a girl, her mother, her grandmother, her school and her story. Once a wise man said, to fix the past you have to set the future right. Sometimes you visit the history to make sure you don’t repeat it in future. 

Add to it the complexity of a Mothers and daughters relationship. There is a woman to woman, a parent- child and then adult to adult. There is a constant tug of war from sisterhood to motherhood. 

Other than that what I found interesting was the Protagonist Pin’s complex relationship with God. It started as more of a set of rules by adults. Don’t cut your hair, cover your head, wear Kada, go to template, eat langar food, don’t talk in templates. As parents who pass their religion to their children, along with the celebrations, and the community feeling, we also pass rules and forbiddens to them. You can’t eat something, you need to pray a few times, you can’t marry someone who does not have the same religion, you can’t show your skin, you have to cover head, you have to blindly respect and follow the religious leaders. 

Pin spoke to the picture of Guru Nanak, she despised going to the temple, she hated to follow the rules. She did tiny acts of rebellion to check if God gives punishment. The freefalling self judgement of right to wrong, and good to bad. Religion is many things for many of us. We all go through our respective journeys and build a private relationship with our god. 

There was also her precious relationship with her father. They would often eat out, plan lottery tickets numbers, drew sketches at public places and talked about random things. Her father was the calm opposite to her tumultuous mom who was moody. 

It is only natural what she was going thru with that skin allergy of hers. Any sane person will get frustrated. She was still a good mother. She spoke to her child, pampered her with food, she was there for her. 

Then there was the girls school. The girls growing up and sharing their journeys from child to woman, with their mothers beside. How a poor relationship with a mother can make a difference. The dynamic and the child’s emotions.