Dear Knotta

In this, the second installment of my Knotta Gupta column, I wish to make something absolutely perfectly clear: no challenge is too big, no person is too shop-soiled, and no individual is gone past the point of no returning. There is only hopefulness, and helpfulness here, for all and all.

When I was young, my grandfather, Priyank Gupta, who was a Roman Catholic priest, taught us the value of living parsimoniously. (I have purposely used this Italics word, in order to verify that my Thesaurus is still functioning correctly, and in the approved manner. Apparently it is. I have learnt never take anything for granted.)

We Guptas were poor – much poorer than the poor poorest of the poor. My grandfather sometimes came home, after conducting a church service, with just one unleavened wafer (which he managed to pilfer from the wafer box at the basilica).

(For you heinous atheists, pagans, vegans, and heathens out there: a wafer biscuit is similar in shape to roti, but much smaller in diameter. Unlike sinful roti; wafers are blessed, sanctified, consecrated, and full of holiness. And very healthy to eat.)

We Gupta children, all seventeen of us, would gather around our dilapidated kitchen table, and granddad would place the wafer in the middle of it. Then, in his best Roman Catholic priest’s voice (with a slight Indian intonation), he would say grace in Latin: “I can play better dominoes than you-hoo!”

And we would sing the chorus: “We can play dominoes in Paternoster too-hoo! Aaaah-haaa-men.”

“Very well, children,” he would say. “And all and all. You can now share this wafer, but don’t eat it all and all. Saving some for our evening meal, you know?”

We were very parsimonious.

Until the day that Karma smiled down upon us!

This is how it happened:

During confession, some sinner confessed the age-old secret recipe, of unleavened wafers, to granddad. Granddad fined him six rupees and a four Ave Maria’s – told him not to do it again – and chased him out of the confessional telephone booth.

When he got home, granddad confessed the recipe to my nephew, Subh Gupta, who was working at our village’s local bakery at the time:

1 cup flour

¼ tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons cold water

¼ cup oil

2 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Mix the flour and salt. Add the water to the oil without mixing. Add this to the dry mix and add the honey. Mix with a fork. Flatten onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Score into bite-sized pieces with a round cookie-cutter. Bake 10-15 minutes. Feeds 547.

Nephew Subh baked up a few dozen of holy wafers, filled them with spicy Indian curry, folded them into triangles, and Voila! As we say in Sanskrit: The Rest is the History of the Tastiest Samosas in Delhi. Subh Gupta became a billionaire overnight.

And that respectable, honourable readers, is how we Guptas made our fortune.

(OK. Maybe I’m not being of the full truthfulness here. We also got some baksheesh government tenders and kickbacks under the table, but that is neither there, neither here, nor there, nor yonder. The fact is, it all started with a confession.)

The great Ghandiji once confessed: “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

Or, as granddad used to confess in Guajarati Hindi to people with challenges: “Ait a wafer avore gwain to bed, laddie, an’ you’ll make the doctor beg his bread, and all and all.”

So goodly readers, I am awaiting you to confess your challenges here at the Knotta Column, with open arms, and a breath full of batedness.

(All except sahib Chris Bothma, that is. That Punjabi has got too many serious challenges to confess and all and...)