My daughter has just deposited this tiny, brown-jacketed, yellow-paged, yellowing-further diary into my hands. It has the year 1990 embossed in gold – the numbers standing out majestically against the brown background. I ought to thank my seven-year old brat who managed to dig it out from the cupboard in our bedroom. It’s not that I had forgotten completely about it till she took it out. I always knew it was there, but the monotony of daily routine somehow made me disinterested enough not to reach out to it.
Let me tell you about the first page of the diary. It has GAYATHRI (yes, all in upper case) written on it. And now that I think of it – it feels so silly. I had this strange fascination for using sketch pens then; so much so that I had chosen to write each letter of my name in a different colour. Just below my name, I had written VII – E; and then below that, the successive classes till IX – D; of course with the previous ones struck out with an inordinate sense of pride!If you are still wondering what I did with that diary, I won’t hold you back for long. The brown book was my first-ever, sensible record of literary attempts, or more specifically, a record of perhaps the most fascinating literary form for an aspiring writer of that age – poetry. I was twelve then.
Skipping those traditional pages with maps, metrics, and so on, so characteristic of a diary, I rush to the first date page. And this is what I get to read:
Black polkas on golden satin
Seeing you I can’t help but grin
Brownish, glassy, shiny frills
Oh my, your aroma no doubt thrills!
Skin a mix of orange and brown
Boy, you are the best veggie in town
In every form, you’re a true delight
In mom’s black pan, you are a sight!
I am not sure if I should be impressed. I think I should be; a smile lights up my lips. Not bad, for a twelve-year old, don’t you think? Gee! Actually, let’s get down to some history here. Much of my initial days of poetry madness found their inspiration from my mom’s cooking. She’s a fantastic, exceptional, mind-blowing cook, I tell you. This was an ode that I had written to the potato curry my mom was making one day. The smell of mustard and onions in oil, coupled with the aroma so characteristic of boiled potato pieces mixed with turmeric and chilli powder, seems to have sent me into a state of sweet madness.
As I sit engrossed in my book of love-for-food memories, flopped carelessly in the bean bag in our living room, my daughter keeps skating in and out of the room; sometimes, she does take me to the edge of my patience– testing it too often. Hubby dear is in the study room, on the Internet, as expected. But, today, I am in no state of mind to get angry; rather, I am quietly elated – displaying much more tolerance than I usually am capable of; the reason – my mom is coming over home, here to Delhi, tomorrow morning. And that would mean, among other things, lovely food, for whatever time she is going to be around!
I return to the brown book in hand and turn the pages. More poetry – some just four lines, some over 20 lines – all in praise of some delicacy; I notice that much of my inspiration in all these pieces had to do with the appearance, aroma and taste of the item in context. Understandably so, for, doesn’t good food any day appeal to one’s sense of taste, smell and sight?
I stop at the Ode to Mom’s Coffee. From the date, it appears that I have scribbled it when I was thirteen-and-a-half.
Born you are, from classy brown beads
A dash of milk, sown are obsession’s seeds.
Gentle brown-white froth your veil
Helplessly addicted, that’s how I feel.
Vapours that seduce the mind and soul
One sip, I drift away to a fantasy stroll.
What are you, my bitter-sweet coffee?
A heart-warming, soul-stirring ecstasy!
Yeah, I am a coffee-lover, rather an addict. It takes just a cup of good coffee – to lighten my mood, lift my spirits, to break the ice, to melt my tension; yes, that’s all it takes. But, not everyone makes good coffee, really. Most think, it’s the easiest thing to prepare. But, true coffee lovers can tell apart an out-of-the-world coffee from a really-good-one to a hmm-ok one to an argh! one. And well, my mom – she makes out-of-the-world coffee, always. One which has been certified by at least over a hundred coffee lovers. Lalitha’s coffee – that’s a trademark.
And here, I ought to share some interesting stories. Coffee was and is a very powerful tool of my mother. At its best and almost always, it has melted my dad’s early-morning and post-work eccentricities to nothingness. A smile is guaranteed on his face, the moment he places the empty stainless steel tumbler into the duvrah (saucer). What’s more interesting is the confession that came from my husband a year into our marriage. One evening as we were sipping coffee – he in his blue mug and me in my grey one, he told me – ‘You know one of the reasons why I agreed to marry you is the coffee your mum offered me the first day I came home. It was so heavenly and if not anything else, I thought I could at least have such good coffee all my life, if I married you; you know, I really thought you would have inherited the awesome-cook-gene from her!’ I remember, he winked and grinned and I, well, frowned.
Honestly, I am an average cook – not exceptional but not bad either. You know, like, just any other reasonably OK cook. And definitely, a woman that belongs to the generation of working wives and mothers who invariably stack their kitchen shelves with ready-to-eat food packs, soups and not to mention, noodles. I should admit my daughter and husband have been accommodating – not demanding too much. And that has always prompted me to try and do something for them. Sometimes, mostly the weekends, I try making the more complicated dishes – like Aviyal – a fine mix of different vegetables in a gravy prepared out of coconut and green chillies. Sometimes, I attempt Bisibele bath, Kashmiri pulao and puri and chole and so on.
You are smiling, aren’t you? Doesn’t matter, that’s how I am; for my mom, preparing these is next to nothing, but for me, it is a task. I am better off being a foodie than a cook! Now that I am much older and I look back at my childhood days in a more mature perspective, I should say that my mother took upon cooking as a sacred duty –the essence of the happiness in her life being – delighting her husband and her children and all those relatives and friends who came every other hour – withlovely, wholesome, tasty food.Once I asked her why she always lived in the kitchen, and she told me, there’s nogreater joy than seeing the contentment and hearing the praise of your loved ones, after a good meal. Surprisingly, it is the same happiness I feel when I eat good food.
And, I haven’t seen a better perfectionist than her. She used to and still makes the most perfectly circular chapattis and dosas, those that would put even the full moon to shame. As for me, I am still trying to get there. For mom, learning was again, only in the domain of cooking.
Once, when my aunt from Pune had come down, my mother ensured that she learnt how to prepare Bakarwadis and Sabudhana Khichdi from her. Yet another time, when we had been to Ahmedabad to visit our uncle’s family, she learnt how to make Dhoklas. The next weekend, I remember my dad, my brother and me feasting on some yummy Dhoklas with green chutney. I am almost sucked into the past when my daughter suddenly hugs me from behind. Ma, she says, when granny comes tomorrow, I will ask her to make bread pakodas, coconut barfis and murukku! I smile and say, Ok kanna. I am sure my husband has his own list.
As for me, I think, I know; I will ask her for Paal Payasam (Milk Kheer). My daughter is off, even before I realise. I get back to the diary. I vaguely remember writing something about Paal Payasam too. I flip the pages in a sense of hurry, a strange feeling – part excitement and part desperation, hanging on to me. After a few pages of personal, diary entries, I land on the page I want.
Countless are the joys you bring
O’ dear, you make my heart sing.
Pearl white, flashes of saffron,
Fine cashew and cardamom bang on.
Ah, did they speak of a heavenly nectar?
Look here, can there be anything better?
Lady in white, utterly sweet and serene
A sweet dish like you there’s hardly been!
Me, the true Paal Payasam fanatic. I think I will trade diamonds for a bowl of awesome paal payasam. Haha!
I am just about to turn the page, when my mobile rings.
“Amma Calling..” it notifies.
I leave the diary on the floor and get up.“Hello,
Amma..”
“Gayyu, do you need something from here?”
“Hmm..nothing really, ma. No, wait..
just those butter biscuits from Iyer Foods! The rest, well, you are coming so..”
I smile. She laughs.
“Gayyu, I hope you have extra milk packets,” she says, and as if she has read my mind, she adds, “I will make Paal Payasam tomorrow.”
I grin and say, “Yes ma, I do! Love you ma!”
Picture by homekraft