So once upon a time, there lived a girl dearly loved by all. She was the youngest and beloved to all, her mother, her father and her brother. She lived in a happy home, surrounded by beautiful trees and all shades of sabzaar. Her mother had only one complaint, one worry and only one pain. The girl would not eat, as is known of all children, but she was particularly undernourished. Her mother spent hours worrying about the strong winds and nasty birds who could fly away her poor child.

Then one day, she took her daughter to the attic with a toor full of doad-batte. There lived a handsome bulbul, shokpaseen. “wal wal shokpaseeno dodbatur pyaran chuyo” and the bird would fly in and hypnotize the child into eating her meals and share some of her food. The child was mesmerised by this bird and eventually showed improved appetite. Relieved of her worries now, she would allow the child to eat by herself in the attic with shokpaseen. The girl would religiously run up every day carrying her doadbatte toor and call onto shokpaseen. He was her friend, her closest companion. She was happily cheerful, almost too cheerful.

Mother’s relief was indeed short-lived and her suspecting finger pointed towards her child’s surprisingly meek body. The child was showing no signs of weight gain even after months of eating doad battur every day. When she frustrated all efforts, she closely followed her daughter to the attic. Oh! How sad, how mad was she to know that shokpaseen had fooled her daughter into giving him the entire battetoor to relish. ‘wale wale shokpassenoun, doadbattur pyaran chuwo’ and the bird would dive headlong into the bowl. 'This badbabhkt bulbul, my poor child’.

She had to figure this out, she deliberated, discussed and fussed over it. Finally, she asked her son to follow the girl to the attic next day. Like every day, the girl dressed up, took her doad battetoor, skipping her way to the attic, humming, and singing. She sat down, lay out the dastarkhan and called ‘wal wal shokpaseenoun doadbatur pyaran chuwo’ ’as soon as shokpaseen dived into the doad-batte toor, they boy shot the poor bird. The girl stopped for a nanosecond, the world at once came to halt and got stuck. She stood up, walked towards the window and dived headlong to follow her shokpaseen.

How to survive a meal

Shokpaseen

Chingi Mingi

tomul (Chawal) 1/2 Kg or 2 cups
daudh ( Doodh) 1 liters
noon ( Namak)
zyur ( Zeera) 2 tablespoons
pudne (mint powder) for garnish


Pour the pre soaked rice into a saucepan and add 12 cups of water
boil the milk separately
Let the rice boil, add salt and reduce the water.
Keep mashing the cooked rice and stir constantly.
Add boiling milk into the rice, mix and keep stirring the rice. Keep on high blame till it boils and then let it reduce on low flame.
Once the milk is completely reduced, add seasoning and cumin
Serve and garnish with dried mint powder.

Making Sweet Stuffing:

Heat ghee in a pan. Keep flame to a low. Add poppy seeds. Fry for some seconds till the poppy seeds start crackling.

Then add grated fresh coconut, jaggery, cardamom powder and grated nutmeg. Mix well and cook this coconut-jaggery mixture on a low flame. The jaggery will melt first.

Stirring often cook this mixture for 7 to 9 minutes till the moisture from the jaggery begins to dry. Switch off the flame. Don’t overcook as the jaggery then hardens. Keep this coconut-jaggery filling aside. On cooling, the mixture will thicken more.

Keep the filling aside to cool.

Making Modak

Take a ball and flatten it with your fingers to a round disc or a shallow bowl shape. You can apply ghee or oil in your palms while flattening. Place the sweet filling in the center.
edges pleated at the side
Flute and press the edges. Bring together all the edges and join them. Remove the extra portion of the dough from the top, if any. Shape and taper the top of the modak with your fingers.
edges joined at the center and modak is shaped

Grease a steamer pan lightly with oil or ghee. Place the shaped modak in the greased pan with some space between them. Cover with a kitchen napkin.

The water should be hot or boiling when you place the modak in the large pan. Cover the pan and steam modak for 10 to 15 minutes on a medium-low flame.
Once the ukadiche modak are steamed, you can drizzle a few teaspoons of ghee on them.

Doud Weagre

Ukdiche Modak

(originally in Kashmiri)

(in marathi)

Date: Jan 2021- ongoing
Size: 1920 x 1080
Medium: video/ performance
Materials: printed text, water, spices, ghee, milk, furniture, dastarkhwan and utensils.

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'Chingi-Mingi' is rhyme about two sisters playing the game of house. In the story, Chingi embodies the traits of a 'good girl' who cooks, cleans and is obedient and well-behaved, whereas Mingi is the 'bad girl' who is greedy and lazy. During the game when Mingi overindulged in sweets, their mother learns about it and punishes her while Chingi is rewarded for being a good girl.