KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 19 -- Think Deepavali, and you'll likely picture murukku, achi murukku or ladoo laid out on the table. But for many Tamil families, the festival's menu of traditional sweets stretches far beyond those crowd favourites.

Among them are urundais - a word that simply means "ball" in Tamil. These hand-rolled treats, made from a variety of grains, are slowly slipping into obscurity as fewer families today take on the painstaking process of roasting, grinding and shaping them by hand.

Still, for many celebrants, these sweets are edible forms of love that mothers and grandmothers once spent hours making in the days leading up to Deepavali.

So, before you reach again for the usual murukku, make some space on your plate for th...