Puzzle, by Pravasan Pillay

I get onto the subway train at Liljeholmen. It’s seven on a Friday evening. I’ve finished my shift at the store and I’m heading home. The train is filled but there are still a lot of free seats. I sit down at a four-seater, diagonally across from a young man. We’re the only two sitting there.

I glance over to the young man. It is mid-June, summer in Stockholm, and he’s dressed in a pair of loose khakis, a short sleeve shirt, and sandals. He’s slim, clean-shaven, balding, and is wearing wire-rimmed glasses.  

The young man is holding a square of folded newspaper in one hand, and in the other hand, a squat yellow pencil. From where I’m sitting I can see that it’s one of those number grid puzzles.

I’m impressed by how he has folded the newspaper. The square is around 10cmx10cm, fits easily into his palm, and has a narrow border of white space around the grid, which I assume is either for rough work or because it’s pleasing to his eye.

The back of the square is also impressive. It’s clear that he hasn’t cut or torn the puzzle out of the newspaper, but, instead, has folded the sheet into itself, like a piece of origami, without any of its edges showing. I imagine that this method also provides a degree of padding while he’s writing.

I shift my eyes to the seat beside the young man. There’s a plastic carrier bag on it – from the top of the bag, I make out a five-kilogram sack of basmati rice. The rice sack has a built-in handle, so a carrier bag seems unnecessary. It’s possible, however, that he finds the carrier bag’s handles more comfortable.

I return to the young man. I notice that he’s not actually writing on his square. Instead his pencil hovers over the empty grid. I see from the movements on his lips that he’s doing calculations.

The train stops at Mariatorget. The driver announces that there has been a problem on another train, and, soon thereafter, a throng of passengers pile onto our train. I spot a harried-looking mother and her son. I get up, and offer them my seat. The young man moves his rice sack, and lays it flat on his lap.

A minute later, I get off at Slussen to change trains. I watch the young man through the window as the train pulls away. It looks like he’s started writing. 

The Tin, by Pravasan Pillay

I place the flat tin of sardines, which was bought from Lidl at a cost of 19 kronor, on the kitchen countertop. The rectangular tin is packed inside a sealed cardboard box with the dimensions 11cmx6.5cmx3cm. The information on the box is in Swedish and Finnish: The skin-and-bone free sardines are packed in sunflower oil and a lemon slice, weighs 125g net and 90g drained. The fish (sardina pilchardus) were caught with purse seine nets and trawlers in the Eastern Central Atlantic – FAO Area 34.

The box also has barcodes on three sides, nutrition listings, and a best before date of 31.12.2028 – listed below the date is the following text: “L043T Morocco 1156”. The box is predominantly blue in colour and, on the front, has a picture of sardine fillets placed on a white plate, and garnished with lemon slices as well as leaves of some sort – which is presented as a serving suggestion.  

I start to remove the cardboard around the tin. The box flaps are glued shut and require using a fingernail to pick an edge loose and to then peel open. I try to not tear the glued flap, but even so, some tearing happens. The tin, which measures 10.5cmx6.3cmx2.8cm, fits snugly in the box, but also slides out without much effort. It’s silverish in colour, with a slight bronze tinge, and a dull shine.

The longer sides of the tin are lined with about ten protruding ridges each, while the shorter sides are lined with three ridges each. The bottom has two shallow oblong depressions, one nesting inside the other. (The number 32 is faintly stamped in the innermost oblong.) There is also a small dent on the underside, about two centimeters in length.

The tin’s lid is imprinted with the same info found on the side of the box – “31.12.2028” and “L043T Morocco 1156.” – but they are askew. This is the only text on the tin. The lid also has nested oblong depressions, though these are larger in dimension. On one end of the lid is the ring tab with which to open the tin. The ring tab looks much like those on soda cans but broader. It’s pear-shaped with a large hole at the bottom through which one can grasp the tab.

The bottom of the tab – the part to be lifted – rests on two bumps, which results in the tab being raised slightly above the surface of the lid. Between these bumps, and underneath the tab, is small indentation. The combined effect of the bumps and the indentation allows the tab to be easily held and lifted from the surface – without using anything, such as a butter knife for example, to pry it up.  

Using one hand to hold down the tin, I grasp and lift the tab more than 90 degrees with my other hand, which causes the tab to push down into the lid, and for the lid to cave in somewhat, revealing a sliver of oil as the seal is broken. I insert a finger into the tab, and using my thumb as leverage, I pull it slowly towards me, allowing the thin lid to be incrementally peeled away from the tin. The lid, which is oily underneath, and which now has a curved shape, requires a bit of jiggling to completely detach.

Wax Paper, by Pravasan Pillay

Like many South African children, my mother would send my school lunches in a lunch box. The lunch boxes, made of cheap, colourful plastic, were divided into two compartments. One compartment was for sandwiches and the other was for a juice bottle that came with the box. My mother would typically fill the bottle with a weak juice concentrate or sometimes – which always came as a shock to the system – plain water. I would usually lose my juice bottle a month or two into the school year.

The lunch box provided crush-protection for my sandwiches, but my mother additionally wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper – in order to keep the bread fresh. The grease-proof paper would be wrapped snugly over my sandwiches using a precise, intricate fold. I was always impressed by how secure this fold was. The paper never needed any tape or string to stay sealed.

I also loved the soft, matte texture of the wax paper on my hands as I would take it out of my lunch box and unwrap it on my lap during breaks. The ends of the transparent yet cloudy square of paper would be a little rough. This roughness came from it being torn off against the serrated edge of the cardboard box that the wax paper roll was sold in. I would often steal pieces of paper from this box, which I would use to trace pictures from my comic books.

As I would eat my lunch, the wax paper would act like a napkin, catching crumbs and fillings that fell from the sandwiches. When I was done eating, I would scrunch up the paper into a ball and put it back into my lunch box – which was my way of thanking the chef.

Sometimes, my mother would send my school lunches wrapped in aluminum foil. This was either because we had run out of wax paper or because the dimensions of my lunch dictated a more pliable wrapping – for example, hamburgers, cheese buns, hot dogs, or snacks like samoosas, vadas, or bhaijas.

I never liked getting my lunch wrapped in foil. It didn't feel right in my hands. It was too hard, almost sharp – I felt like I could cut myself. I was a clumsy child so this is not as ridiculous a concern as it may initially seem. One other minus of foil lunches was that it gave the impression, in my working-class primary school, that my family was rich – aluminum foil being more expensive than wax paper.

My single-parent family was far from rich but my mother, unfortunately for my street cred, wrapped lunches like a member of the bourgeoisie.

The only good thing about foil was that afterwards you could use it to make small silver dinosaurs with. You could also scrape a ball of foil on cement to make it smooth and mirror-like, which was as good a way as any to spend the dying minutes of your break.

There were, of course, other ways my mother wrapped lunches, whether it was newspaper, cling wrap or plastic bags. But only wax paper had that indefinable quality that somehow made my, say, fish finger and tomato sauce, or fried polony, or curried potatoes, or cheese and tomato sandwiches taste extra good – like they were gift-wrapped bread.

My Swedish Butter Knife, by Pravasan Pillay

In the summer of 2020, I bought myself a new butter knife. I purchased it at a popular household, garden and office supply store here in Sweden.

I was browsing the kitchen utensils section of the store for a new potato peeler – and that's where the butter knife, or smörknivet, caught my eye. It was utilitarian looking: a chunky plastic handle that fit comfortably in my palm, and a broad, thin metal blade, with a shallow serrated edge.

It felt light in my hand. The handle, imprinted "Made in Sweden", had a large hole at the top to hang off a hook.

I didn't need a new butter knife. I owned several traditional Swedish wooden butter knives, all of which worked fine. Wooden smörknivar are ubiquitous throughout the country. I have grown to appreciate their simple design in the more than decade that I have lived here. They're affordable but beautiful-looking, natural, unpretentious and practical – a distillation of Swedish design.

Along with knäckebröd, a flat, hard crispy bread, wooden smörknivar are one of my favourite gifts to give when I visit South Africa every few years – Swedes in general make great value-for-money knives, such as the cult Morakniv, the brand of choice of many knife enthusiasts around the world.

I mostly use my wooden smörknivar to spread margarine, but also various spreads-in-tubes such as Kalles Kaviar, the iconic Swedish fish roe sandwich paste. I, additionally, use them as makeshift spatulas when scrambling or frying eggs – their dull edges don't damage non-stick pans.

Still, despite being satisfied with my wooden knives, I decided to buy this plastic and metal variant. I reasoned that it was cheap and, besides, one more butter knife in the drawer couldn’t hurt.

At home, I was impressed by the flexibility of the blade, which was something you didn't get with the wooden knives. This flexibility, which made spreading easier, combined with the width of the blade, turned my new, bought-on-a-whim, butter knife into the star of my kitchen within days.

I began using it for all manner of tasks – its intended uses of buttering bread and spreading spreads, of course – but I also used it as a spatula, palette knife, a ruthlessly efficient scrapper of the bottom of nearly-empty peanut butter, mayonnaise and sambal jars, and for cutting sandwiches. I even used it to scoop up masala from my spice dabba when I was too lazy to grab a teaspoon.

It was, in short, a kitchen-counter workhorse – much like my tomato knife.

If I had to put it plainly I would say that using this very basic object has made me happy in a tiny way. It has made humdrum tasks seem less humdrum.

After asking around I found out that this type of butter knife is sometimes known in Sweden as a "lilleman" or "little guy". So, I thought I would write these 500 words for you, little guy, in return for the pleasure you have brought me.

bunny_painting.jpg, by Pravasan Pillay

I'm at a small, borrowed writing desk, located in a corner of my son's room, working on a piece I wrote a while ago. I usually write my first and second drafts in WordPad, a rudimentary word processor that comes packaged in Windows machines. I like using it because it doesn't markup spelling or grammar errors, which I find distracting.

I have been rewriting this 500-word piece, off and on, for a couple of weeks, but it keeps eluding me. I can't get it to flow from one paragraph to the next. I take a sip of cold coffee, minimise WordPad, and look out the window at the building across from our apartment here in Stockholm, Sweden.

The balconies of the pink-painted building are empty, as is the garden below. A postman walks up to the building's entrance, punches in the door code, and walks inside. The door closes behind him.

I look away from the window and stare at my laptop's desktop instead – through the crowded icons I see a JPEG called “bunny_painting”. It sits near a folder called “2019”. I double-click on it and a second later artist Riason Naidoo's painting “Beans Bunny” fills the screen.

I have had this photo of the painting on my desktop for many years – after downloading it from an art website. I click on it every now and then, especially if I’m stuck or want to be reminded of home – Naidoo, like me, is from Chatsworth, a working-class Indian township in Durban, South Africa.

The painting, which has large dimensions and which is on a pegboard, is a pop art inspired depiction of a bunny chow – a cult Durban street food consisting of white bread filled with curry. It was painted in 1997, which was a fertile time in the city for art, music, and writing. It’s now in the permanent collection of the Durban Art Gallery – at the time a rare incursion of a subversive voice in a mainstream space.

The painting, dominated by artificial but pleasing blues, yellows and whites depicts a bunny chow, as yet uneaten. The bread plug, resting on top of the bunny, is moved to one side to reveal a filling of what looks like beans curry – almost as if inviting examination.

It's a depiction of a culinary and cultural icon, but, because the bunny is painted without context you are forced to think about what this icon represents, and what is embedded in it.

The abstract bunny in the painting is then not only a vessel for a curry, but also a vessel, given the Apartheid origins of the dish, for stories of Indian indenture, segregation, culinary hybridity, the cosmopolitan, and survival. It is both a painful and triumphant work of art.

The painting forces you to confront the fact that it is the bizarreness of indenture and Apartheid that has created the physical and conceptual bizarreness of this collage-like food.

But in the midst of this particularity there is a reach for the universal, to say that this food is art and that it is valid. That it is ultimately for everyone.

After about a minute of staring at the painting, I close it, maximise WordPad, and I return to writing. It goes better now.

Slices, by Pravasan Pillay

It's 11.30 a.m. The beginning of autumn. I have been writing for three hours, and it's time for lunch – or, perhaps, a late breakfast depending on how you see it. Lunch today will be a cheese sandwich. This is always my lunch when I'm at home writing, so not much decision-making has happened here.

I remove my headphones, close my notebook and laptop, get up from my desk, and walk the few steps to the kitchen. I take three slices from the sandwich loaf we have on hand, and place them flat on the breadboard – which in Swedish homes often pull out from the kitchen counter.

I grab margarine and cheese – this time it's a widely-available variety called prästost (priest cheese) – from the fridge, and place them on the countertop. I reach over to the drying rack and fish out the cheese slicer and a butter knife from amongst the flatware.
 
I use the butter knife and slicer every day so they never actually reside in any particular kitchen drawer. The rack is their home.

Next, I open the margarine tub and, using the knife, scrape generous curls, which I spread  – to all corners – of the bread slices. With the cheese slicer I plane long, evenly thick pieces from the cheese wedge.
 
It is important for the surface of the cheese wedge to remain level throughout this slicing, and subsequent slicings. In Sweden, a person who slices unevenly from a cheese wedge is looked down upon. The wedge this person has cut from is disparagingly called a “skidbacke” – because it resembles a ski slope.
 
Once the cheese slices have been successfully Tetrised on the bread, I horizontally cut the sandwich. I only cut sandwiches diagonally on special occasions; if I'm requested to; or if the contents of the sandwich warrant it.
 
I return the cheese and margarine to the fridge. I place the sandwiches on a saucer and walk to our sofa, where I read an article on my phone, which I saved from yesterday. It takes me eight minutes to eat my sandwiches, after which I head back to the kitchen, drink a glass of water, and wash the dishes.
 
Lastly, I use the palm of my hand to sweep the breadboard clean of crumbs, deposit them in the garbage can, before pushing the board back into the counter. I then walk to my desk, put my headphones on, open my notebook and laptop, and start writing again.

Delivery by Pravasan Pillay

It's an autumn evening and I'm crossing the small park in front of Helgalunden church. You could also walk along the pavement that lines the church grounds but almost everyone cuts through the park to save time. Most days, after supper, I walk a loop around my neighbourhood here in Skanstull. I go through the park, down Blekingegatan until it joins Ringvägen and along Ringvägen until I get to Götgatan – where I walk the short distance to the stairs straddling the sides of Skanstull's tunnelbana exit. The stairs lead back up to my street.

My evening walk takes about 30 minutes, if I go slowly. It's been raining today, and it's dark though it's only five-thirty. Winter will soon be here, and it will start getting darker even earlier in the day. The desire path across the park is covered with autumn leaves from the trees that border the church grounds. The leaves looked beautiful a few days ago, soft piles of brown, red and yellow that crunched underfoot, but now, after the rain, they are sludge – wet, slippery and dangerous to walk on.

I walk carefully, following a muddy zig-zag trail that has been established by other walkers throughout the day. I am dressed in a hooded parka which has a reflection band snapped around a sleeve so that I'm more visible. I am also wearing jeans, boots, headphones and a woolen hat that, along with the rest of my clothing, is damp from the constant drizzle.

When I reach the end of the pathway across the park, I stop and wait to cross the street. It's then that I see the food delivery driver. He's on a moped and is driving the wrong way down the street – a mistake many make. The delivery driver narrowly misses getting knocked by a car coming towards him. He swerves to the side of the car, wobbles as if he is going to fall, but quickly recovers his balance. When he is past the car he pulls off to the side of the road, underneath a street lamp.

The driver is dressed in a green jacket and has one of those big square bags that all the delivery drivers carry attached to the back of his moped. His face is framed by his helmet and, as I approach him, I can see his shock at the near miss. He is breathing heavily, checking his phone and punching in something. He has a neatly-trimmed moustache, round cheeks and looks to be in his mid-thirties. Before I reach him, he has already started his moped and is gone.

I make my way down Blekingegatan. About fifteen minutes later I'm walking on Götgatan and past the big McDonald's. Outside the restaurant is a line of about ten food delivery drivers standing by their mopeds, bikes, and electric scooters waiting to pick up orders from inside. They are chatting to each other. I look to see if the driver from Helgalunden is among them but it's hard to make anyone out in the dark and the rain. In a moment I am past them.

The Chip by Pravasan Pillay

As I sat down on the sofa in our living room, I noticed the potato chip under the coffee table. It was morning. A Tuesday. I had eaten a bowl of chips the previous night while watching television. The lone chip had likely fallen from the bowl. I placed the cup of tea I was carrying on a coaster on the coffee table, and reached down for the potato chip.

It was easy to spot the light brown arch against the grey of the living room carpet. The chip lay between two small piles of books under the table, so I had to turn my hand sideways and fish it out, using my index and middle finger in a scissor manoeuvre. I set down the still intact potato chip on another coaster and looked at it while I drank my tea.

It was a new flavour from the manufacturer, sour cream, onion and chilli, and last night was the first time I had eaten it. The chip on the coaster was speckled with red, white, and green flakes, each about the size of a period, though there was no uniformity in the shape of the flakes. The red was chilli, the white, likely, salt but I was unsure of what the green could be.

In the middle of the chip was a grey scar – a long strand of carpet fuzz. I reached over, pinched it off the chip and blew it from my fingers. The carpet fuzz descended slowly back down to the floor.

The chip was about the size and shape of the bowl of a tablespoon and was finely ridged – as opposed to wavy, broad crinkles – with an occasional blister, created during the frying process, disrupting the neat parallel lines. I counted sixteen peaks and seventeen valleys in all.

 
When I looked at it closer, in the dim, morning winter light coming through the window, I could see that it wasn’t the same pale brown colour throughout. There were slight burned areas around its middle and its edges. The chip also had a pronounced curve so that if you held it down on one end and let it go, it began rocking back and forth like a see-saw – for a few seconds at least.

 
I took a sip of my tea and picked up the chip. It felt furry from all the flavouring powder – an unpleasant sensation. It also felt taut, and fragile. I placed it back down on the coaster and positioned a finger on each of its raised curled ends. If I applied even the smallest downward pressure the chip would split in two or more pieces.

 
I kept my fingers on the edges and slid it around the coaster. It made a surprisingly loud scratching sound. When I finished drinking my tea, I took the chip to the kitchen, opened the garbage can, and threw it on top of a heap of old coffee grounds and a tangle of potato peels from yesterday's supper.