The real two-minute meal

"I'm not naming any names, but that stuff that dances on TV...you know that thing that gets made in less than three minutes when your children are hungry...we don't even have that," my father says, looking inside an almost empty grocery cupboard. I look intently at him to see if this is the beginning of that dread disease in which old people forget key nouns and verbs and end up speaking only in prepositions and articles and you have to fill in the rest.
He turns around and dispels my fears by saying lucidly: "We're out of eggs, there's no kanda-batata, no veggies in the fridge, just some leftover rice, and nothing in smart plastic packets with foreign names. But..." He plants an egg timer on the kitchen table with a rap: "I'll make us something to eat in less than three minutes, and it won't taste of ground chicken bones and MSG. Time me."
"Your time starts now," I say.
"Pithla," he announces, setting a kadai on the stove and pouring a tablespoon of oil in it. Nothing hurried about his movements - he even takes a slow pull at his gin-and-lime. Some kadi-patta from the balcony plant, rai-jeera whole, a pinch of haldi and hing, and one last chilly that he catches lurking in the vegetable tray, go into the now hot oil, sputtering and crackling briskly. Just twenty seconds up. Two large glasses of water added to the kadai subdue the tadka sounds with a hiss and a sizzle. A couple of pinches of salt and an optional pinch of sugar are thrown in as the flame is now turned high. The water begins to boil at the edges. One minute's up. He shakes out two fist fulls of besan (channa atta - gram flour) into the water, and begins to stir it gently. Over his shoulder he says, "Your mother always liked it with the little knots in it. So I'm just throwing in the besan. Those who like it smooth should first mix the besan and half a glass of cold water into a smooth paste and then add it to the boiling water." He looks at the timer. Two minutes and five seconds. The pithla is now the consistency of a fondue, its surface breaking into molten bubbles giving off the reassuring aroma of the tadka. He gives it one nice stir, raps the ladle on the side of the kadai as a full-stop. Two minutes and fifteen seconds. He pours the pithla out into a serving bowl, returns the kadai to the fire and stir fries the rice from the fridge for another fifteen seconds. "Actually this doesn't count, because the main dish is ready," he says, serving the rice on two plates and ladling the steaming pithla all over it. We're ready to eat in two and a half minutes - the humble pithla that all of Maharashtra has eaten for centuries whenever you're low on groceries, or when unexpected guests come for dinner, or the cook's feeling lazy. Sometimes you don't have to be in a hurry or short on anything to make it. It's on the menu by popular demand - when the family wants a pithla-cha-programme. That's when the modest pithla comes into its own.
"Every region in Maharashtra, actually every family, has its own version," my father says, between hot mouthfuls." You can put red chilly powder instead of green chilly, and onions cut in large cubes and boiled in the water - not browned in the oil.
You can hold the kadi patta, throw in lots of garlic in the oil and a garnish of coriander. "The raja of pithlas," I think, "is one with drumstick pieces boiled well in the water before the besan goes in," my father says, with a devout expression on his face.
"A heaped tablespoon of groundnut powder mixed in just before the pithla is turned off is my second best choice. Or there's the variation with til and a piece of dry kopra grated into the tadka and browned. For those looking for a tang, chopped tomatoes or a cup of curd in the water will do the trick."
The warm glow of the pithla settles inside us. "Next time we're in a hurry and our cupboard is bare...like that lady in the fairytale...we'll make us a less-than-three minute dish from Gujarat. And then after that, one that a Sindhi in a hurry would make," my father informs me. "Asli fast-food - not the kind that needs to frolic on TV."