I share my name with a flower;

And now, I’d want to add, to my arsenal, qualities of a flour!

COVID-19 isolated all of us in the summer of twenty-twenty

Kitchen was where so many of us found spending time aplenty.

To take my mind off the unknown,

I chose to delve into a skill well-known.

Furiously frequent conversations with mom – the expert

Guaranteed a disaster it would avert

 “Pyaaz Pakodas are soaking a lot of oil”

A last-minute hack was worth the toil!

“The batter has turned out too runny”

Instantaneously I’d know where to put my money!

“How in the world do they cook so crispy?”

Mom shared her (obvious) secret to the recipe!

Allow me to introduce my mentor seemingly ordinary –

Named ‘Rice Flour’ with its prowess so extraordinary!

Like band-aid is to a bruise at the doctor’s,

Rice Flour is to my cooking disasters.

Whenever caught in a dilemma,

I instantly add this flour before calling Ma!

A binder it turned often

Or an addition to fix the broken.

So awed I was with the flour’s quality

That I wanted to be like it with full purity…

An uneasy question, however, reared its head –

 “Granted you’ll be taken for; be careful where you tread!”

Do I want to be the SOS only when everything else fails?

Thought of not in happiness but only when one wails?

Or if attuned to the brighter side –

Without me nothing’d be right even if tried!

As the war brews in my head which side to pick,

A heapful of flour I add and let it do its trick…!