💬 I break chikki before eating it and my flatmates think I'm mad

I don't bite chikki. I break it first. Over a plate, with the flat of a steel spoon, into 5 or 6 pieces. Biting into a full slab is how you find peanut bits in your shirt pocket 2 days later. My flatmate Prasad bites it straight in. Last week a piece flew across the room and hit the TV. He pretended it hadn't happened. I pretended I hadn't seen it. That's how we get along. I only buy the jaggery kind, not the white sugar one. The sugar one shatters into dust. The jaggery one breaks in proper chunks, with a clean snap, and you can see the peanuts inside. There's a stall near Kothapet that sells a packet of 10 for 40 rupees. I take 2 packets. By Wednesday it's gone, and Prasad swears he never touched it. I live with a liar. My dentist once told me chikki is the number 1 reason for chipped teeth in his clinic. He said it cheerfully, like a salesman. He had a poster of a cracked molar behind him. Since then I use the spoon. It's not elegant. The plate rattles and the neighbours probably think we're renovating. I have never chipped a tooth. I'd like to keep that record. People say breaking it ruins the whole thing. They say the crunch should come from your own teeth. I say a chipped tooth is also an experience, and it costs 3000 rupees. Prasad bit into one yesterday and said ow. I said nothing. I just ate my pieces, slowly, one at a time, and enjoyed every single one of them.

Ibrahim's car seat story is exactly why I eat chikki outside now. On the terrace, standing up, with the shards falling wherever. The pigeons clean up and nobody complains. Indoors it's a whole project with plates and a broom. That's too much effort for a sweet that costs 10 rupees. Jaggery ones only for me. The sugar ones are glass and I don't trust them.

Breaking it apart first is the only sane approach as far as I am concerned, learned this the hard way after chikki shards went flying across a car seat on a road trip years ago.

Bite it, I say, and the shirt can take it. Breaking it first feels like cheating. I tried the spoon method after your post. 3 pieces went on the floor and 1 under the fridge. So the mess happened anyway, plus I washed a spoon. I lost on both sides. The dentist point is fair though. I chipped a molar in 2019 and I'm still sulking about it.