Kheer Komola is yet another dish I have never heard of prior to going through Moni dadi’s diary. Usually I am a little skeptical about new dishes, even though Moni Dadi’s recipes never fail to bedazzle me. But just seeing the name Kheer Komola had me all stirred up. Because kheer is just utterly delicious, and a friend once explained the beauty of Komola (tangerine/orange) and the fruit has me mesmerized ever since.

The translation for Kheer is sweet rice pudding. But I beg to differ with the translation, because you don’t always need rice to make Kheer. And kheer itself is very different from pudding. Kheer is basically a sweet, reduced and dense form of milk. You add white flour or rice to create the perfect density. But the main process is just boiling the milk till it gets denser and denser.

The dish I associate kheer with is Patishapta. It is a dessert, more specifically a Pitha, that has kheer wrapper in a crepe. Think of it as a shawarma but the wrapping is crepe that is way thinner and the filling is way way sweeter. If you have never tried Patishapta I would highly recommend trying it out sometime. You are making kheer for Kheer Komola, might as well make some extra Kheer and make some Patishapta later on.

But my favorite part of making Patishapta is having the residual kheer. After making all of the Patishaptas, some kheer would be left in the karai. And scraping off those leftover kheer is the best feeling. My sister and I would even sometimes fight about who’s gonna eat from the karai. So kheer is not just a dessert item, it has plenty of memories connected to it.

Kheer with fruits is a new concept to me. But I’m glad the fruit in question is orange. Because no other fruit, or dare I say any food, encapsulates the mundane beauty and joy of life like orange does. I know you are here to learn about cooking but gush over oranges for a moment. Here is a poem that encapsulates the simple joys of life through sharing an orange.

The Orange
— Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

There is nothing more pure than peeling a piece of orange for your loved one. It is not as flashy as other acts of love, but at the end of the day it’s the little human interactions that make up our life. You can build the Taj Mahal for everyone to see for centuries to come, but the truest connection is made through the mundane chores of life.

One of my friend’s mother would recite poems every winter morning while his father would peel oranges for her – if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is. I peeled and fed oranges to two of my friends while they were doing their assignments about three or four years back. And to this day both of them reminisce about that day.

I know I have moved away from Kheer Komola, but oranges just make me warm. So here is another poem.

Oranges
by Jean Little

I peel oranges neatly.
The sections come apart cleanly, perfectly in my hands.

When Emily peels an orange, she tears holes in it.
Juice squirts in all directions.

“Kate,” she says, “I don’t know how you do it!”

Emily is my best friend.
I hope she never learns how to peel oranges.

I hope all of you enjoy sharing oranges with those close to you, I hope you cherish the person that peels oranges for you.