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Michelin Star gajak, rain, and the efficiency of parents

From my hardly strenuous survey, I find that if you're from Uttar Pradesh, this biscuity, sesame brittle is known as gajak, with the 'z'.

I was wondering how to translate gajak in English without sounding like a too-serious fool. Here goes: Winter in North India is about 'peanut, sesame and jaggery brittle' - there, that's my translation. Old school nutrition, best had with a cup of steaming ginger tea and fresh gossip.
From my hardly strenuous survey, I find that if you're from Uttar Pradesh, this biscuity, sesame brittle is known as gazak, with the 'z'. The Punjabis stress the 'j'. If you pay attention to linguistic variants, you can pinpoint where someone's home is. It's beautiful how tongues and dialects burble together. Is it gazak  or is it gajak ? Are you from UP or Punjab? But what if you're from Himachal, Orissa, elsewhere - Birmingham, Karachi? I ask this of a lot of people and get mixed responses. It's all very - as my Punjabi brethren say - "intrusting!"
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I need to buy gajak, I told my mother (that's what I've grown up calling it).
In my last two days of a long spell in Delhi, I was finishing running errands. Bank work, opticians work, get-Aadhar-spy-card-linked-to-Delhi-phone-number-work, and take-munchies-back-to-Dubai work. My mother was driving me around. I was snapping at her to change gears. She was ignoring me. "I'll take you to where you get the best gajak! Michelin Star stuff!" She said. In my family, we like nothing more than an outing in the car, and overstating a cause.
"What is Michelin Star gajak?? Can't we just go to RK Puram guy??! I have other things to do!"
But daughters should shut up and allow themselves to be dragged by mothers, especially determined ones at the wheel. So, 48 hours later, for breakfast today, along with a couple of the dozen methi paranthas (Fenugreek flavoured Indian flatbread) packed for me by Mahavir, our family's retainer of over 30 years, who has seen me since I was 3, I bit into Michelin Star gajak.
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Every time I leave my parents, I have sad thoughts. This time was different. I wasn't (too) sad. I was distracted. I couldn't stop admiring the efficiency of my parents. Case in point: a pair of my boots has been languishing in Delhi. I thought I'd carry them back. But a thread was coming out from near the back of the shoe. My mother, ever ready with a quip, said she'd take it to Sonia Gandhi's cobbler. How she knows who Sonia Gandhi's cobbler is inexplicable. I have no issue with a regular 'mochi' (cobbler), I said, the guy who sits under the Kapok tree, near the ICICI branch. Can't he repair my once-upon-a-Promod-buy? My father, eager to snatch time with the kids, I suppose, and wanting to still be "of use" - why does that sound so terrible?! - said, give it here. I gave him the single boot, in a worn white paper bag with the red H&M logo. He vanished. In 20 minutes, he returned. I was amazed. "Done?!" Yep. How much? I asked. "The princely sum of Rs20," Papa said. I was impressed and amused and relieved that I didn't have to go hunting in Deira or Bur Dubai for a 'mochi'.
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It was a long flight back to Dubai. We were circling, an hour late. It was raining. The pilot may as well have been singing the ditty from Dirty Dancing: Just a little bit longer... A man on my extreme left initiated conversation. He moved to Dubai in 1999. In March 2000, he was with his brother in Bur Dubai and saw people dancing on the streets. He asked his brother, why are they so excited? You're too new to understand, his brother told him. These people haven't seen rain in three years.
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com