Butter Safe Than Sorry

Finally, I got my two blocks of butter yesterday.

It was no ordinary achievement, even though it might look that way to you.

Ever since I started living in my current city, I have always kept spare blocks of butter in my refrigerator.

Back when I was growing up, only one shop in my village sold Amul butter. My happiest day would be when it was a day for pav bhaji at home. I would run proudly to the shop, get a 20-odd rupees worth of a butter block, and bask in the glory of it for the next whole week, adding a slice of it to everything I ate.

A week ago, the crisis finally arrived. I was down to my last block of butter, and the supermarket where I shopped every week had been running out of butter for a month. And boy, I couldn't breathe easy.

Thinking hard, I realised the obsession probably started around the first half of the year I was here. I invited my friends from the office to my place for dinner, and I proposed making pasta.

Why pasta? Because it was the easiest and trendiest food I knew how to cook.

I boiled the pasta, strained it, cut the veggies, and minced the garlic, and it was at that point from when the things started going southwards.

The last step was to toss the pasta with veggies.

I turned on the flame, scooped some butter, and added it to the pan.

My friend came up behind me, volunteering to help, helps herself with the box of butter from my hand, and dug the spoon deep into the box. The next thing I know, all my minced garlic was diving into the flooded pool of butter, half the box, which is 100 g of butter melted right in front of my eyes.

That night I ate the most guilt-inducing plate of pasta I have ever had in my entire life.

I learnt the biggest lesson of my life that night,

Never trust your butter with anyone,

so now if I invite you home and you see some extra block of butter in the fridge, just keep quiet.

I am completely prepared for you to finish at least one of those blocks, but would you ever be allowed to get in my kitchen again I don't know.

Maybe my friend who made us a delicious pasta that day, when she last came to my home, could explain it to you butter better.

The hero of the story or, maybe the villain. I will leave you to decide