Samira made a face when she opened her tiffin box and thought, ‘Who wants to eat parathas and brinjal curry? Not I.’

Last week Amma had given her noodles with capsicum and carrots. “The noodles are squiggly and they look like worms,” she said when she went back home.

“I don’t like noodles.” The next day, Amma made upma with peanuts and peas, but Samira ate only the peanuts in it and took the rest back home.

“It was like wet sand,” she said when Amma asked her why she hadn’t eaten it.

“Shall I give you idlis?” asked Amma. “Oh, yes ! They would be lovely to play with. I can toss and catch them. But I will not eat them—idlis taste like mud.” So now there were parathas and brinjal curry. Ugh, ugh, ugh!