Bread Bits and Biryani Love: My Pulao Memory
For the longest time, vegetable pulao was my biryani . Not the dum-style, long-marinated kind — no. This one came packed in a white paper parcel, a little greasy at the corners, still warm from the tiffin center, with a soft aroma of ghee, masalas, and something unique — fried bread cubes . And this, believe it or not, was my first taste of biryani. And I loved every bite of it. Like most of my food stories, this one too begins with my mother. She was a schoolteacher — now retired — and back then, my sister and I studied in the same school where she taught. We were quite the trio. It made life easier in many ways — school bags were shared, tiffin boxes were sneakily passed during breaks, and heading home or elsewhere after school was never a task. But here’s the part that still pulls at my heart: Ahmad. Ahmad wasn’t just anyone. He was our rickshaw uncle . An elderly man with kind eyes and a quiet strength, he picked us up from daycare during my toddler days and continued to drive...