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I was sitting at my friend’s house, chatting with her, when her brother kept walking into the room, asking things like, “Should I help you find your comb?” or “Where are the keys to your bike?” or “If you need anything, just tell me — I’ll get it.”
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He was clearly trying to act like a hero, but all of it just annoyed me. I didn’t hate such people — but they really got on my nerves.
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Anyway, I had to tolerate all his nonsense for two whole hours. On the other hand, my friend’s mother kept giving me looks, wondering when I would leave — it had gotten really late, and I was still sitting in her house.
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To be honest, she wasn’t wrong. It was their dinner time, and I was still there like an uninvited guest. What could I do? I just kept sitting silently, like a statue. Somehow, I managed to survive those two hours there.
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Then I called my cousins, and they told me they were back home. As soon as I heard that, I said goodbye to my friend and left.
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When I reached home, all three siblings — my cousins — were sitting together, chatting. Ali was also there. But I went straight inside. They were saying that our parents were going to stay the night at the relatives’ place, so who’s going to prepare dinner now?
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This created another round of tension in my head. None of us knew how to cook! But out of nowhere, I said, “Let me try today.”
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Everyone was surprised, but happy too.
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We couldn’t buy food from outside because we didn’t have money, and if we had asked the neighbors, they would’ve mocked us by saying, “Such grown-up girls and still can’t cook their own food?”
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So, I started. I chopped onions, tomatoes, and prepared everything. But then, suddenly, my brain clicked — I remembered the noodles, tea, biscuits, and pastry I had made earlier for myself.
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I searched the entire kitchen, hoping to find them, but nothing was there. I was still looking when Ali walked in and asked, “What are you searching for?”
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How could I tell him that I had secretly made food for myself earlier?
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I stayed quiet. He then said, “You won’t find those things — because I ate them.”
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Hearing that, I felt deeply upset. And he, right in front of me, casually admitted it with a smirk, saying he really enjoyed eating it all. He was teasing me at that point.
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I walked straight from the kitchen to my room. When I reached, one of my cousin-sisters was already there, studying with her books. She said, “Tonight, we’ll sleep with you!”
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That would’ve been fine on a normal day — but today, I had come to my room to share my pain with myself. But now I couldn’t even do that.
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I just sat silently with them on the bed. I was still sitting there, thinking, “Maybe I should just explode and tell them everything” — when suddenly she said, “You were making rice, right? So what did you end up making?”
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Hearing that, I felt like screaming. Since morning, I hadn’t had a single moment of peace, and now all they cared about was rice!
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Anyway, already half-burnt and irritated, I made it to the kitchen again — my brain was still stuck on everything that had happened today. I wasn’t even paying attention to how I was cooking. Only when the rice went on the dum (steam) did I finally realize — what did I even do?
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But now, what could I even fix? I would only know what mess I made once the dum was opened.
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When I came out of the kitchen, everyone started asking, “How is it? How does it taste? How’s the salt, the spice?”
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How would I know? I hadn’t even tasted it myself.
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Still, I said, “Yeah, yeah — they turned out great! You’ll all love them! You’ll never forget that Alia once made rice for you!”
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Everyone was starving, so they had no choice...
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