I had always sucked at making plain parathas. They invariably turned out with
some uncooked spots or were stiff and hard to eat. I was also made fun of
because of the plain parathas I doled out, and this was when I had only about
started cooking by myself (read, after getting married). Ask me to cook
stuffed parathas any day, and I did well. But I didn’t make any progress over
the years with churning out soft plain parathas. I kept recalling how mom
would roll out perfect, soft ones each time and tried hard to remember the way
she performed each step, but to no avail; the magic was not happening with my
hands. With some fluke, some turned okay and some were round as well. But
there was no systematic procedure to get consistent shape and softness and
edibility. This time I decided enough was enough.