❄ Winter Whispers: A Sesame Story✍

✉️ Dear readers,

❄️ How do you live your winters? 

⛺ Most of us choose the comfort of staying indoors unless the world outside truly calls. Yet, somewhere beyond our warm rooms, there are people who step out every morning without complaint. 🌾 Farmers do this quietly, faithfully. In villages, on farmlands, and in the hills, winter is harsher than it is in towns and cities. Still, they walk into the cold, tend the soil, and keep life moving forward—so food may reach our plates and days may continue as usual. 

🍁 As part of this winter series, while speaking of foods that warm us from within, I often find myself thinking of rural mornings. 👀 Have you ever noticed what people in the countryside eat when winter begins its long stay? 

🌾 In places like ours, especially in rural homes, mornings arrive with the smell of millet rotis—jowar, finger millet—or with a bowl of warm finger‑millet porridge. These are not fancy meals. They are steady, grounding foods, meant to hold the body through long hours of work. Alongside them sit simple accompaniments: sesame seed chutney, sesame powder sprinkled over rotis, or rice mixed with a generous spoon of ghee. ❄️ These are winter foods—trusted and familiar. 

🌰 Sesame seeds have always belonged to winter—not for grand reasons, but for the quiet comfort they bring. Their warmth slowly settles into the body, easing stiff joints and tired muscles on cold mornings. The good fats within them nourish gently, protecting the skin from dryness and keeping the body supple through the season. With their simple, strength‑giving protein, they help those who work from sunrise to sunset remain steady and resilient. 

🔍 Our elders trusted sesame for the bones, rich as it is in calcium and essential minerals. Vitamin E and natural antioxidants quietly guard the heart and support balance within the body. Sesame digests at an unhurried pace, offering lasting energy, so hunger waits patiently and fatigue stays away. Beyond chutneys, there are sweets—sesame and jaggery bars with peanuts, laddoos rolled by careful hands, and oil pressed slowly from the seeds, considered especially nourishing during winter. 

🍪💛 Sesame often enters our kitchens in small, loving ways—sprinkled over sweet dishes, mixed into homemade millet biscuits, folded into recipes passed down without written notes. There are endless combinations, and in each one, a little warmth. 

👵 My grandmother would wake around four in the morning, long before the sun touched the fields. She would take milk directly from the cows and buffaloes, feeding them gently before moving on to her housework. Somewhere between these quiet tasks, the aroma of filter coffee would rise, filling the cold air with comfort. Later, she would prepare for the farm, packing food made with care—finger‑millet rice balls, sesame chutney, and sesame powder to go with them. She packed not only for herself, but for those who worked alongside her in the fields as well. 

🌄 They would sit together under the mild winter sun, near the softly flowing water channel and the steady hum of the pump. With warm food in their hands and the land around them, the hardness of winter seemed to loosen its grip. It was food, yes—but also rest, warmth, and a quiet kind of joy. 

🍯 Whenever we returned home from the village, my grandmother would make a large batch of sesame laddoos with jaggery and a touch of rice flour. She packed them carefully and sent a big basket along with us. Those laddoos carried more than nourishment—they carried her love. 

📜 Black sesame seeds, rich in protein, minerals, and natural goodness, were part of this tradition too. They held vitamin E and protective compounds our elders never named, yet trusted deeply. To us, they were simply comfort shaped into sweetness. 

🏡 After returning from the village, our home would slowly fill with the warmth of sesame snacks. My mother would share the laddoos with neighbors and friends, passing them across doorways with quiet smiles. I would tuck a few into my school lunchbox, sharing them with my friends, who always asked—softly and eagerly—for me to bring some again the next day. 

🤍 It was a simple winter—wrapped in warmth, shared hands, early mornings, and the gentle sweetness of sesame and jaggery. My dear reader. Some winters stay quietly in our hearts. If a memory or snack comes to mind, do share—I would love to hear your story.

With warmth and love, 

✍️ Raasi