Sound of Silence

Everytime my mom prepared sweets for us, I used to comment on the quality/quantity of those sweets without putting too much thought into it. I once said "It tastes really good but it could have been a little more crispy and better shaped", and then she would go on to list the probable causes for imperfections, and stay concerned the whole day wondering if she could have made those sweets better. After seeing her so despondent, I would tell her that it was the taste that mattered the most, and not the shape of the sweet. Recently for Deepavali, I made the seven cup sweet. But I just couldn't make those pieces in proper shape at all. It came out like an halwa at first. So I put it back on stove for sometime and tried it again. Only this time it came out hard like a stone. So hard that I couldn't cut it at all. So I put it back on gas again, added more milk and tried again. I was fighting with this for around two hours going back and forth before I finally got tired. So I brought the sweet back to its halwa state and let it cool. After some time, I was happy to see it become moderately hard but without the stone-like hardness. I let it cool for around 1 hour.

I then gave a piece of this sweet to my husband and eagerly awaited his comments. I was kinda of happy on the job well done and I was almost sure he would appreciate me for putting in so much hard work. I heard nothing for the first few seconds...and I finally heard him say, "The taste is fine, but its a little hard like a cookie". There I go....I felt like telling him "Cant you just say it tastes good". After struggling hard for two hours, I wasn't ready for even a small bit of criticism. I then realized it was very hard to accept criticism when you make something for a person whom you love the most and that person did not say it was bad but didn't say it was the best. I now know how my mom felt. I guess you live and learn.