It was my parents' 20th marriage anniversary in the year 2000. I had never cooked before that. Somehow, I felt I should cook something special for my parents. We are Sindhis, but I thought of making a Punjabi dish, Mahaprasad [Sheera].

I had tasted this in many gurdwaras. When I told my parents, they started laughing! But, they still encouraged me to cook for the first time.

For making Sheera, you need the same quantity of wheat flour and sugar. What I did was, instead of mixing the ingredients in the same quantity, I added double the quantity of sugar.

You can very well imagine what happened. It was a total mess! The mixture stuck to the pan. It got burnt and instead of the sweet smell, I could only get the smell of smoke!

We had to throw the whole thing away and food had to be ordered from a nearby restaurant. I was very upset but my parents were very pleased with my effort -- whatever the result. After that day, somehow, I don't feel like preparing anything other than tea!