"How much rice do you want?" Lalith took a larger bowl and started pouring the rice into it.
"For the three of us..." I started calculating in my head, "Let's say two bowls of the smaller bowl." I took out the spices needed and washed them. I kept them on the cutting board to let them dry.
"Two bowls. Ok." Lalith measured the amount of rice he poured and put the extra back into the rice bag.
I searched for the masoor dal and found an ancient packet of it tightly closed in a metallic box. I opened it and hunted for those pesky insects that like feasting on pulses and rice. Finding none, I poured two bowls of the smaller bowl into the larger bowl. I took the bowl and started to wash the rice and pulses with water.
"Do you have tomatoes?" I squinched my nose to prevent the glasses from falling off my small nose.
"Maybe in the fridge. I'll check it." Lalith said and looked into the refrigerator's fresh vegetable segment. The segment hardly had any vegetables in it other than some tomatoes, some really old lemons, some pumpkin, some cucumber, and a box of coriander and mint leaves.
"We have three. Will that work?" Lalith showed the three tomatoes to me while I was preparing to drain the water from the larger bowl.
"More than enough. Could you wash them and cut them in slices?" I started draining the water from the larger bowl using a washed plastic plate from a previous takeout as my rice blocker.
"Don't you want vegetables in the porridge?" Lalith asked while chopping the tomatoes when I poured the olive oil into the pressure cooker. He started looking for some garlic and ginger.
"Not really. Ranga doesn't like vegetables in his porridge." I said and lit the gas stove.
The oil started to heat up, and I found a spoon large enough to stir the khichdi. Once the oil started to give out light smoke, I asked Lalith, "Pass me the spices, please."
"So many peppers?" Lalith asked as he took shelter behind me once the oil started to sizzle and splatter once it came in contact with the spices.
"Yes, to warm up his body and let him sweat out the cold." I said, as I stirred the oil even though it was trying to give me first-degree burns.
"Why don't you give him the paracetamol? Isn't it much better to give him that?" Lalith clearly didn't like the idea of having peppers on his plate and was trying to change my mind. I decided to tease him.
"Alas, what to do! I already poured all of the pepper into the oil. How about this: if you encounter any pepper, put it on my plate." I said and started cutting some ginger and cloves of garlic. Then I poured the chopped garlic and ginger into the oil and kept stirring it.
Lalith stopped using me as a shield as soon as the oil stopped splattering and took the spoon to keep stirring for me. "Can I do that? I really don't like pepper."
I giggled, shook my head, and said, "Sure."
Then once the garlic started to stick to the surface, I poured the tomatoes, and Lalith kept stirring it. I opened the newly bought turmeric and garam masala, took the salt, and poured them in until my ancestors said in my head to stop.
Then poured the rice and masoor dal and poured one and a half bottles of water. We kept stirring it and later put on the lid and waited for two whistles of the pressure cooker.
"Should I give the paracetamol?" Lalith took a chair and sat, offering me one.
"No. Rather, let me check his temperature and see. The basic cooling should work." I said and went to Siddharth's room.
After gently waking the sleeping Siddharth up, I took his temperature. It had reduced to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. He was steamed up inside the blanket and was drenched with sweat.
"Ranga, the khichdi is almost done. How about we wash ourselves up? Hmm." I gently suggested the whining boy, who clearly didn't want me there.
"I don't want to bathe." Siddharth downturned his lips and didn't open his eyes. He didn't want to sit upright and kept falling into the bed.
"We are not. We are just going to wipe ourselves. Aren't you drenched in sweat?" I suggested, trying my level best to make him sit upright.
"The porridge is done." Lalith entered the room and knocked on the door.
"Look, Lalith is here. He helped me cook. Are you going to be a bad boy and not freshen up and not have dinner that he and I cooked?" I sternly said. Exactly as mashima[1] used to say.
Siddharth opened his eyes, frowned at me, and said, "Fine, give me my towel and another cloth to wipe myself. Also another set of clothes. I stink in this."
I gave him his towel and another set of clothes. Siddharth entered his washroom and switched on the water heater. I searched for the extra rag and decided to give one of the rags I brought back then.
"Both of us made enough to last for tomorrow's lunch." Lalith said, as he checked the amount of khichdi we made.
"That's good." I said as I sat on the chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "He becomes like a child whenever he gets a cold."
[1] Bengali word for maternal aunt
Siddharth's mother (here)