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*"Women grinding corn," a chromolithograph by William Simpson, 1867*

ro;Tii kyuu;Nkar muyassar aatii hai

"How do we get our roti?" (a masnavi for children)

translated (very literally) by FWP, July 2009

1) In that you eat roti every day / Tell me, how is roti prepared?
2) If it's cooked from flour / Tell me, where does that come from every day?
3) If this flour is ground from grain / Then, whose work is this grinding?
4) In what way do we get wheat? / And where does it come from, and how?
5) It's the farmers' kindness to us / That we get wheat.
6) They bring people their daily bread, / Consider them the grain-merchants of the Lord's house.
7) Theirs is the work of cultivating every harvest / Theirs is the work of enduring hard labor.
8) It is they who sow and harvest grain! / In this, the whole creation is in need of them.
9) Farmers regularly, from here and from there / Bring wheat collected in sacks.
10) The merchants who are shopkeepers in the bazaars / They are the buyers of their sacks.
11) Having settled the price of the wheat / They fill their shops with it.
12) The whole bazaar remains full of wheat-grains / Wherever you look, there are heaps of wheat-grains.
13) It's they from whom we buy wheat / A rupee's worth, two rupees' worth, ten rupees' worth.
14) Whatever your dad earns / He too buys and brings grain of that amount.
15) He brings it and gives it to your mom / She, having sorted through it and winnowed it and prepared it,
16) Grinds it herself, with her own hands, / She has arranged a hand-mill in the house.
17) With this very hand-mill she had ground that grain / Which having eaten and eaten, you've flourished.
18) That poor thing always, at dawn / When you're unaware, still sleeping,
19) Quickly goes and sits down to grind flour. / She's an amazingly hard-working creature of the Lord!
20) With this hand she turns the hand-mill / And with that one, she keeps on putting in wheat-grains.
21) When her right hand becomes tired / Then she changes to the left hand.
22) Sometimes, when she feels anxious at heart / She begins to repeat the name of the Lord.
23) Sometimes, having immersed her heart in the Lord / Having sung a song, she comforts herself.
24) When the flour has been ground, then, so to speak / She considers, 'I conquered a great fortress!'
25) Then having picked through the flour and separated out the chaff / She takes it up and puts it into a pot.
26) Then she begins to knead the flour, slap-slap / And pounds it with her fists, thump-thump.
27) She pummels the flour in such a way / As if she wrestles with it.
28) When the flour has been kneaded, she takes / The tava, and puts it on the stove.
29) From the kneaded flour she makes dough-balls / So that by whatever means it would be finished quickly.
30) Then, hastily, she puts on the roti / Whether the bread would be thin or thick.
31) Somebody just take a look at her speed / She put it on the tava-- and in a moment, it's flipped over.
32) Having cooked, served, eaten, fed others / Having washed up the basin that got dirty,
33) She took up some other household tasks. / This is her routine, morning and evening.
34) If at some time fuel is not available / Then she, having taken on her head the basin of flour,
35) Goes straight, poor thing, to the oven / That is not so very far from her house.
36) The innkeeper, who maintains the oven / Everybody has him cook their flour: 'Bring it here!'
37) He remains, morning and night, at the ready / One comes to the shop, another goes.
38) He sits there, wearing his langoti / With great speed he puts on the roti.
39) One moment he spreads it on his hands and lifts it up / He lays it on the baking-pad, and at once puts it on.
40) In his hands, the way it appears / As though he were some swift fencer.
41) He constantly pounds on the dough-balls, the way / So to speak, a wrestler strikes his arms in challenge.
42) The rotis come off, one after the other / All hot, sticking together, well-baked.
43 ) When all the rotis have been cooked and have come off / She covers them with a cloth and brings them.
44) Meanwhile, all you sisters and brothers / Are playing the tune, 'When is Mom coming?'
45) Hungry, they watch for their mom / They don't understand anything, but they want their mom.
46) She keeps on serving all of you / She doesn't even have time to die.
47) Day and night, this is her hardship / To cook, to serve, to sew and mend.
48) She's always trodden underfoot among you children, night and day / Even if she'd say something, to whom would she say it?
49) She's conscious neither of good and of bad / Nor of dressing poorly/unfashionably.
50) For her to collapse somewhere, when she has the leisure / Is this 'sleep' really to be counted as sleep?
51) Day declines, and her head lifts: concern over food / Concern over your father's coming home.
52) Having gone out from home in the morning / When he will return in the evening, from work,
53) The moment they see him, spontaneously / Small and great will become silent.
54) The moment he will set foot inside the house / All of you will sit quietly, out of fear of him.
55) And Amma, having left off her sewing / Will begin to attend upon him.
56) He doesn't manage to relax, before / She comes, and brings and spreads out the dining-cloth.
57) At one moment she stands and waves a fan over you / At another moment she keeps bringing water for you to drink.
58) She keeps giving to all of you the spicy gravy / Although for herself, no relish-dish might remain.
59) Whatever is left over, bones and pieces / With it she eats her roti.
60) Her purpose is to feed you / She has no interest in her own eating.
61) If you would find your food savory / Then it's as if she considers her work virtuous.
62) If if would not be cooked flavorfully, then-- 'you wretch!' / She feels it in her heart, just a bit.
63) After all, who can do without a mom? / She herself didn't eat-- and she fed you.
64) What do you care about those struggles, brother / Through which you get your food cooked?
65) You don't bother about either cooking or cooking arrangements / If what you want is to eat!
66) If there would be the least little delay in eating / Then you turn the house upside down with weeping.
67) Don't you know your dad's love? / Don't you recognize your mom's maternal feeling?
68) Aren't you at all aware of their hard labor? / Don't you notice their self-sacrifice?
69) You can't give them the return they deserve / Even if you give up your life for them.
70) Honor them with your heart and soul / Obey and serve them respectfully.
71) From this, understand your mom's rank and honor: / That under her feet is Heaven.
72) She has brought you up and reared you through hard labor / You tormented her, but she didn't curse you.
73) Learn this lesson from Mom and Dad, and remember it: / When you grow up, you will have to do exactly this.
74) The great thing is when you would give them a hand. / When you grow up, be of service to them.
75) Don't you ever be lazy and idle-- / Put your heart into your various tasks.
76) Don't let your reins hang loose-- / Consider shirking to be a form of theft.

*Roti-making in Rajasthan, 2008*

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