Hindi

The first Saturday upstairs at a bookshop-cafe in Hauz Khas Village: the notice on the door, so you're the cook from the radio, eight years in Delhi, what brought a cook to a book club, drop by drop the pot fills, do you know how a story starts, it's a very old tale, once there was a king, in a village there lived a farmer, the story's done, the money's digested, next week the thirsty crow, told, not read.

The kitchen table in Lajpat Nagar, Mummy ji correcting Noah's telling of the thirsty crow: from the start and slowly, first the background then what happened, it was summer, a thirsty crow was flying and looking for water, he saw a pot, a little water right at the bottom, and the beak, the beak didn't reach, pebbles one by one, the water came up, the crow drank and flew off, the one who loses in his mind has lost.

Saturday at the club, Noah telling the thirsty crow in his own words before reading the page: no book first, tell it the way you would to a friend, a crow is flying about and looking for water, as if it's happening now, he sees a pot and says to himself, water at last, the beak won't reach, he drinks and says where there's a will there's a way, the book from downstairs, page twelve, now read the page.

The bench outside the shop in Chandni Chowk, Rohan's phone on a borrowed tripod: look at me, not the phone, tell me how it started, it happened like this, some eight years ago Rohan wrote come, say it again, the phone liked it, a suitcase, a notebook and three words of Hindi for a month or so, it became a year, then two or three, then a wedding, the shop was already nearly a hundred years old, one jalebi and I was in love, cut, tomorrow at seven, this same bench.

Saturday at the club, a Birbal tale: keep the end for the end, Akbar asks Birbal how many crows there are in Delhi, Birbal says without looking up ninety-five thousand four hundred and sixty-three, and if more turn up, suddenly the whole garden is quiet, then crows from other towns have come to visit relatives, and in the end, Akbar laughed and it turned out the question was the joke, a hundred of the goldsmith's, one of the blacksmith's.

Priya, a guest at the club, with a tale doctors tell each other: they say four friends went to study and three became great scholars, they say or is it true, I've heard it's two thousand years old, in the forest they found a lion's bones, as the story goes the three put the lion together, and the fourth, the fourth climbed the tree and the three, it is said, became breakfast, the half-full pot sloshes the most.

Saturday at the club, Verma ji telling Sheikh Chilli and Noah telling it back with the little words: the daydreamer is carrying a pot of oil to the market, well then off he goes, I'll sell the oil and buy a hen, then a goat, so the thing is the goat turns into a wedding isn't that so, the son climbs a tree and his father shouts, he shakes his head goodness, the pot falls and the oil's in the dust, meaning the dream's over, that's called cooking imaginary pulao.

An evening at home in Greater Kailash, Noah telling Priya the monkey and the crocodile: why the monkey one tonight, a monkey in a tree and a crocodile who came every day for the fruit, eating together they became friends, the wife said the monkey's heart must be sweet, so he invites him, swimming along he says my wife wants your heart, the monkey says trembling I left my heart in the tree, take me back, he jumps onto the branch laughing, a life saved is a fortune gained.

Saturday at the club, the book's first line read as written and turned into the kitchen's Hindi: once upon a time in a certain town there lived an exceedingly clever boy, that's the book's Hindi, now say it Dadi ji's way, long ago in a city there lived a very clever boy, the book's town is our city, in the book a reward is obtained and in the kitchen you get it, the book's word for but is long and ours is short, two Hindis one Delhi, as the land so the dress.

Saturday at the club with Rohan's phone rolling, Noah telling the blue jackal: the room first then Noah, tell us what everyone was afraid of, a jackal fell into a vat of dye and came out blue, I've been sent to be your king, the lion was afraid he might be from the sky, and his own fear, what if the jackals recognise me, so he sent them all far away or else they'd smell him out, one night he howls too and the king runs, a lie has no legs.

Dadi ji's kitchen in Lajpat Nagar, carrot halwa for the winter: grate slowly, a bit of finger too, whoever speaks opens the latch and the couple who bet on it, whoever means anyone, whose stick his buffalo, and in this kitchen the stick is her ladle.

The roof in the winter sun with Dadi ji, papads drying: turn them to the sun, the new cook who blames the stove, can't dance so the courtyard's crooked, a proverb is for everyone and keeps old words, his second restaurant, stretch your feet as far as your sheet, come bull hit me, and weigh first then speak.

Meera's bedtime in Greater Kailash, Priya at the door: a tale with animals, the hare who laughed whenever he saw the tortoise, the race, the hare who looked back and slept under a tree, and when he woke the tortoise was at the line: the fruit of patience is sweet.

Sunday lunch at Lajpat Nagar, Papa ji's wedding order that got away: the shop's biggest order, ten thousand laddoos, big fat ones, last year it was five thousand, a whole week at the stove, one mother wanted red boxes and the other gold, take both, and they took not one: cumin in a camel's mouth, told a hundred times, and once burnt by milk you blow on buttermilk.

Raju bhaiya's auto, stuck in the Diwali traffic at Lajpat Nagar market, and the tale of the groom whose auto died on his wedding evening: he was about to run in his wedding shoes, Raju was just about to call the mechanic when the trick came back, one kick on the left, the groom arrived laughing and his mother nearly fainted, and the whole lane knew by evening: walls have ears.

Dadi ji cleans rice and tells the old man and the mango tree: a king rode past an old man of ninety planting a sapling, you'll neither see the tree nor eat its mangoes, the mangoes I ate I neither planted nor watered, either my grandson eats these or a traveller, a gold coin and a tree that has fruited already, mangoes and the price of the stones, and sow an acacia and don't wait for mangoes.

Meera's bedtime in Greater Kailash: the lion who ate one animal a day, the hare who walked slowly and arrived late, the other lion on the road who says he's the king, both went up to the well, the lion peered in and saw a lion in the water, jumped in and never came out: he who digs a pit for others falls in it himself.

The crowded Sunday table at Lajpat Nagar, Rohan, Neha and Priya all wanting Noah's story of his first auto ride in Delhi: let Noah tell it, won't you tell us, just tell it with the driver's face, Lajpat Nagar said three times the American way, a nod and an hour's drive, the address on the phone and the house two streets away, the best hour of his life, and better late than never.

Dadi ji on the shop's bench in Chandni Chowk, Rohan filming and Noah asking: when she first came to the shop, a bride of seventeen who saw this pan before her husband's face, the first jalebi a year after the wedding at that same stove, the move to Lajpat Nagar when the children grew, every Diwali since that day until now, what's past is past, and new things last nine days, old ones a hundred.

The Diwali table at Lajpat Nagar, Rohan filming: how Mummy ji and Papa ji met at the shop's counter: he said the box was ready, she asked whether this shop sold sweets or mistakes, three months of Saturdays asking whether the order was ready or not, her father asking whether it was sweets or excuses, he said he wanted to marry her, and something fishy in the dal from the first box.

Rohan films the sweet-maker at the shop's stove in Chandni Chowk and Noah asks: the stove was built by the first owner's hands, the brass pan was brought from Moradabad and mended twice, the recipe was never written down, the sign is painted by hand, it is said a film star came, and a tall shop serves a bland dish.

Rohan films the shop's oldest customer on the bench in Chandni Chowk and Noah asks: the shop was just like today, only the lane was quieter, his father brought him every Saturday for a jalebi as big as his face, bigger than his face, the halwa is still like in his father's day, the home hen is worth dal, and this shop is like his own home.

Rohan films Noah's restaurant kitchen in Hauz Khas while Priya brings lunch: can he come in with the phone, don't touch the tandoor, watch out you don't fall on my lunch, the monkey on the wall comes for a paratha every morning, mind the step, sit and eat and don't get up while eating, and the road sign's proverb.

The editing night in Rohan and Neha's rooms in Lajpat Nagar, the cut on Neha's laptop: three hours of jalebi that nobody but a sweet-maker would watch, a story must have an ending, nothing else will do, Dadi ji on the bench and nobody but her could end it, and a mountain dug for a mouse.

The voice-over at Rohan's: the film needs a voice and Rohan keeps coughing, so Noah reads: first a shop, then a bride, then ninety-nine years of jalebi, after that an American with a notebook, in the end a granddaughter at the counter, all in all a shop and its lane; the film gets its title, and practice makes the dull wise.

Meera's bedtime in Greater Kailash: the short tale tonight, she's half asleep; a cap-seller lies down under a tree and no sooner has he closed his eyes than the monkeys come down, every monkey puts on a cap, the moment he wakes the tree is full of caps, he throws his own cap and the moment it falls every cap falls; and what does a monkey know of the taste of ginger.

Noah's own story at the book club in Hauz Khas Village: a monkey took a paratha from his kitchen wall every morning, a lid, a scarecrow in a cook's apron, you know what I did then, guess what the monkey did, it ate from the scarecrow's shoulder, and now one paratha goes on the wall every day.

The screening of A Hundred Years of Sweetness at the bookshop-cafe in Hauz Khas Village: two words from the man in the film, first of all, thanks to everyone who let a phone into their kitchen, and especially a grandmother who doesn't go out for films, I won't take much of your time, the empty chickpea rattles loudest, lights off, and chai and jalebi for everyone.

The shop's counter in Chandni Chowk after closing, the evening after the screening: Papa ji would like to say one thing, next winter the shop turns a hundred, will Noah give the speech in Hindi, if he gave a speech Dadi ji would correct him from the first row, she'll correct him from the bench, Rohan would film it, one hand can't clap, and Noah would rather fry the jalebi but for the shop, yes.

Dadi ji's table in Lajpat Nagar, the film watched twice on Rohan's phone: Noah tells the year as one tale, an American told the crow's story, learned to grate carrots without his fingers, Papa ji asked for a speech, and they lived happily, the story's done, the money's digested, that's the whole story, and all's well that ends well.