A NORTH - SOUTH DIVIDE? SORRY, I BEG TO DIFFER !!

                           

Being a Malayali, born and raised in Bombay, I grew up amidst a delightful concoction of religious beliefs and surprisingly unorthodox points of view. Today, these very beliefs and perspectives are being severely tested, as scepticism and doubt on the one hand come face to face with violence and bigotry in the name of religion. We live in dangerous times indeed.

Like many of my peers, I too have been thrown into a quandary over all my earlier philosophies. I constantly question myself, and the answers are not easy to come by. My state of mind notwithstanding, when I received this piece that has been doing the rounds on Whatsapp for months, for the fourth time today, I decided to add my two penny worth on the subject in question.

First of all let me transcribe the article I received.

“Ramachandra Aluri is Associate Editor of the mass-circulated Mathruboomi Daily & outstanding literary figure in Malayalam.

He is a devout Malayali Hindu.

Every Hindu should dutifully read & digest what he writes...”

"Certain ignorant fundamentalists now in power should understand this before targeting Malayalees for their defiance against myths of Akhand Bharat and the beliefs of north. We Hindus of Kerala don't worship cows as mothers. You will rather find bulls in Shiva temples here as stars. For us Sabarimala and Guruvayoor means a lot more than Haridwar or Ayodhya. Our major festivals are Onam and Vishu, not Diwali or Navaratri. We don't celebrate holi, bhai dooj, karwa chauth or rakhi. Christmas and Eid are pretty much part of our lives. Some ardent religious Keralites are vegetarians and a few others by choice. Most of us eat beef, chicken, mutton, duck and all sort of other meats. Fish is essentially a part of Kerala cuisine. Just because, some Northies worship beef, don't expect us to give up beef.

Buffalo meat is not banned anywhere in India. So it was a planned plot in Delhi and well executed by some Hindu Sena to hurt Keralite defiance. Malayalam is our mother tongue and so we are Malayalies. Neither Hindi nor Hindutva means anything to us. Islam and Christianity grew here peacefully and those who believe in those religions are a part of our multi-cultural society. In Kerala you will find churches, temples and mosques standing tall close to each other in peace and some of them are thousands of years old. Keep the sobbing stories of Mughals and other invasions of the North to yourselves. The oldest mosque in India built in 629 AD is right here in Kerala at Kodungallur.

We had trade relations with Jews, Arabs, Chinese and many South East Asian kingdoms for over two thousand years (i.e. during B.C.). We defeated the Dutch in Kolachal.

Travancore and Kochi were not part of British India. They were pretty much independent princely states. Travancore had its own elected people's assembly here in Trivandrum before Indian independence. RSS and other regressive forces should know that we won't bow before your Hindutva agenda, we joined the Indian Union, which is a Secular Federal Republic, and will never be a part of any Hindurashtra".

A Proud Malayali Hindu.

My Reply to Mr Ramachandra Aluri

Dear Mr Aluri,

Like you, I too am a proud Malayali Hindu, although I was born and raised in Bombay. Having carefully scrutinized all that you have written, I find myself quite unable to empathise with your views.

Let me explain.

At the outset, the very tone and tenor of your piece smacks of the typical, blustering, aggressive tendency that so defines our clan. Your attitude is insulting and supercilious. Taking a perverse pride in cutting yourself off from the rest of the country will not serve to make you independent of the ‘Northies’ as you call them.

Unless you think fish, coconuts and spices are sufficient to live on, please adopt a little more humility in your speech. You need the ‘Northies’ a little more than they need you. Instead of boasting “Keep the sobbing stories of Mughals and other invasions of the North to yourselves.”, say a silent prayer at Sabarimalai, or the temple of your choice, for never having known such intrusions. Perhaps they may have served to rid the Malayali psyche of its ill famed arrogance!

One glaring defect in your testimony is your apparent craven fear of Muslims when you speak of 'other' meats. You studiously avoid the mention of pork, which is such a popular and delicious meat eaten by both Hindus and Christians in Kerala. Are you appeasing your Muslim readers?? Worrying about hurting their sentiments, while your ride roughshod over the ‘Northies’?

 As for living together in peace, that was true years ago when the tolerant, mild-mannered Hindus were the majority, and ruled the roost. You live in a fool’s paradise if you think that still holds true. Like the proverbial ostrich, you have your head buried in ‘coconut husk’!

Muslims have aggressively multiplied and taken over the narrative. Kerala Hindus have, sad to say, cowed down in submission. They dare not open their mouths in opposition because Muslims won't think twice before hacking them to pieces, as they did during the communal riots years ago. (my mother, who was from Cannanore, witnessed it first hand).

They still do it, as news stories out of Kerala aver. That the Communists have had a huge hand in the mess that is Kerala is another matter altogether, and fodder for another cannon perhaps.

The truth is Kerala Muslims are joining ISIS and other Muslim Brotherhood organisations, and are being radicalized at an alarming rate. There is an entire Muslim village which has been segregated from the 'Kafirs' (yes, Hindus like you and me), and where Shariah now rules, unhindered and unobstructed. Yes, sir, its true!

Had I read your piece a few years ago I may have felt proud to be a Malayali. However, today your views, and indeed your  style of writing, only makes me sick! And to add insult to my grievous injury, is the sad fact that you represent an old and esteemed magazine like, ‘Mathrubhumi’, a magazine to which my late father made such erudite contributions. He surely must turn in his grave to read this misrepresentation by you.

 The tide has turned, Mr Ramachandra Aluri, and its time we Malayalis woke up and smelt the filter coffee we are so famous for!

                                            The Tale of a Talisman!

Grandmother was very upset the day she lost her little locket. It was an exquisite talisman that had a purple garnet set within an intricate trellis, worked in gold. She wore it on a gold chain, around her neck. 

Most houses, in the 1930’s, in Cannanore, had a well. Grandfather had built a bathroom against one side of the well. A window in the bathroom opened out, over the well, making it convenient to draw water from it, to bathe in.

Grandmother was leaning out of the window when her chain came undone and the locket fell into the well. She lamented her loss for days, but the situation seemed impossible to amend.

A year later, Grandfather stood supervising the annual dredging and cleaning of the well. He noticed that the workers had stopped to gather around a shiny object that had surfaced. It was the locket! Grandmother’s joy knew no bounds and she immediately appeased the Gods, despite Grandfather’s atheistic, blatant, proclamations.

Years passed. Grandmother parted with her beloved locket when Mother was leaving home on her betrothal. Mother in turn wore it for several years before passing it on to me, on my wedding day.

I loved this little piece of jewellery and wore it around my neck on a delicate gold chain. But alas, the talisman possessed a wayward soul! It would often struggle free of my chain and fall to the ground. Each time my heart sank, and I would conduct a frantic search before finding and returning it to captivity, around my neck.

                                                                                                                                            The one time that I almost gave it up for lost was in January 1978. My son Siddhartha was seven months old, and I had my hands full looking after the baby and completing all the household chores. With no washing machine or other modern conveniences, life was indeed difficult.

The husband was away on field posting somewhere up in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir. Letters took days on end to reach and telephone calls were unheard of. I was given a bunch of post-dated cheques to en-cash each month to meet my expenses.

It was the 5^th of January and I needed money, so carrying a duffel bag of baby-basics and other bank books on one shoulder, I picked up little Sid and began my monthly pilgrimage to the State Bank of India, Parliament Street, New Delhi. I walked quickly to the bus stop. I took a bus to Shivaji Stadium, after which it was a long walk to the bank.

Every step seemed to increase the weight on my arm. The queue at the bank was long, and it took over an hour to accomplish this simple mission. The way back to the bus depot seemed longer, warmer. Just as I was shifting Sid from one arm to the other, I noticed the chain lying open around my neck. The locket was gone! I stood shock still for a moment, my mind racing. I would have to go back to look for it!

This time, I was almost running to reach the bank before it closed for the day. As I walked, my eyes swept the footpath, in search of the locket. Sid chuckled and laughed at the unusual sport he was enjoying. On arriving at the bank, I retraced my steps over the area I had traversed earlier. The locket was nowhere to be seen. The gates of the bank, were the typical shutters of the day, that ran sideways on rails. As I carefully stepped over the rails, balancing baby Sid, forlorn, disappointed - there it was!

The talisman lay between the narrow rails, the stone blinking up at me. I could barely believe my eyes. I picked it up and carefully returned it to its place, pressing the hook down tightly to prevent another getaway.

Finally, one day in 1984, while attending the Unit’s Battle Honor day in Jammu, I left my talisman at home along with other precious jewelry. A thief climbed in through an open window and alas, all my jewelry was stolen! The tiny Talisman, I had decided not to wear that day, was irrevocably lost! To this day a picture of the locket remains fresh in my mind. Perhaps, I just might find it some day?

You lose some and you win some!

C’est la vie, folks!

HONEY, I'VE LOST THE KIDS

     I picked up Daddy’s next letter. It began, “So, you’ve lost the children again…” I chuckled at his use of the plural. I had not lost both the children the first time around, only Sameer had wandered away. That use of the plural was Dad’s prosaic licence to give extra fillip, a dramatic aplomb to his writing.  I smile at the thought, a flood of memories kicking in. Daddy wrote very well. He even concocted imaginary stories for me to read out to the children. All written in his impeccable English!  Oh, I digress from the subject at hand...

     Those were the days when cash was scarce and to stretch the rupee a little further I used to hunt for bargains off the sidewalk at Sarojini Nagar Market,Delhi. Walking through the crowd in the then narrow streets, was a feat in itself. I held the little hands of the boys tightly as I steered the three of us past jostling shoppers. Some kerchiefs caught my eye. I would pin a kerchief to the front of their uniforms and tuck it out of sight inside their shirt, when they went to school. Despite the pin, they managed to lose kerchiefs at a rapid rate. Tissues were both expensive and impractical!

     A dozen kerchiefs for Rs 25 was a good bargain. I extricated the fingers of my right hand, from Sameer’s and bent down to examine the size of the almost-square piece of cloth. Siddhartha continued to hold on to my left hand.  Sameer, I didn’t notice, had let go completely. Less than five minutes later, business transacted, I said, “Ok, lets go!”, my hands seeking Sameer’s, at my side. He wasn’t there!

      I looked around to see if he was busy with the toys at the nearby shop. My heart sank…he wasn’t there either and I couldn’t find him anywhere around. I panicked and began to ask the people milling around if anybody had seen a little boy in a blue shirt and red shorts.  By then I had begun to cry and run around in and out of the market lanes, which was a maze anyway, calling out his name. Those were pre-cellular phone days and I had no cell phone to call my father-in-law and tell him of my latest folly. I ran home with Siddhartha in tow, crying all the way, almost dragging the poor little boy in my haste. Rajeev was hundreds of kms away, somewhere along the Indo-Pak border where no phones existed and a letter took ten days to reach. I was furious at myself and frantic with worry. I could barely make myself understood as I sobbed out my story to Papa.

      Papa acted fast! He took his motor bike and roared away. Going straight to the Police Station he explained his predicament to the sympathetic cop. Even as he spoke another cop came upto him, ‘Aapka potha wo baitha hain.’- ‘your grandson is sitting right over there’ he said pointing  to the row of houses opposite the police station. There, seated on a rope cot, with a coterie of interested listeners, was my five year old, regaling his audience with stories of Papa Khullar Mamma Khullar Dada Khullar etc etc…

Now, the second time around,  I have to admit, I lost both of them! 

      I was visiting a friend who had had a painful divorce, married again and was now on the verge of a second divorce. An emotional wreck, she was pouring her heart out to me when seven year old Siddhartha came running in and asked me if they could go out to play– Siddhartha, Sameer and Rahul, another little boy, belonging to the house I was visiting. I absent-mindedly gave him my consent and he ran out announcing it to the other two. 

    Two hours later, I interrupted Lata  in the midst of her ranting and hurried outside to ask the children to come indoors. The courtyard was empty. The shed, the garage, the garden, the area surrounding the boundary wall, they were nowhere to be seen. I ran back in to tell Lata. The new crisis had driven the depression out of her and she ran with me to the shops close-by, looking for the children. I was weeping once more, frantically desperate. We reached the Police Station around the corner. After I had narrated my tale of woe and written down the names of the children on a piece of paper, I looked at the Sub Inspector in silent appeal.  ‘Aap ghabrayiye nahin, bachhe mil jayenge.’ -“Don’t worry M’aam. your children will be found.” the cop reassured. Lata’s father-in-law was known to him and he was happy to be of assistance.

    We returned to the house and I spent the next hour intermittently crying and arriving at self-deprecating conclusions. All on a sudden I heard angry sounds and ran outside. Lata’s father-in-law was scolding Siddhartha for leading the chidren into disobedience. Siddhartha stood silent, hanging his head in shame. I hugged him!  His height always made people mistake him for being far older than seven. The fact was Rahul, I learnt, nine at the time, was the brain behind the misdemeanor. I hugged the children, made my excuses and returned home, both chastised and contrite. 

Well, I never lost the children again!

                                          SIDDHARTHA AND SAMEER

C’est La Vie!

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle..

“...My sister Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up "by hand". Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand....” (Charles Dickens, `Great Expectations')

The true meaning of being ‘brought up by hand’ is quite unlike Dickens’ protagonist, Pip’s interpretation of it. I would, however,  much rather use his adaptation than the dictionary version that says it was an expression used to denote that an infant was spoon fed rather than breast fed or wet-nurse fed.

All through our childhood and that of the generation following ours, bringing up ‘by hand’ was quite the rule rather than the exception. Especially, for parents of unruly kids, a quick whack was an on-the–spot solution to enforce instant discipline and order in a potentially chaotic situation. Children learnt to respect, fear and instantly obey that hand, neither questioning it nor doubting the love of the person who dealt it.

As adults, they remember that hand with warmth, and recount the number of times they had encountered it, with affectionate humor. In retrospect, most of us do not harbor dark thoughts or analyze the psychosis of our parents. We have, as grown-ups, experienced the quick flash of anger or fear that provokes such punishment and know now, the aggravation that leads to it.

One of my cousins, seventy now, was recalling with amusement, her mother’s ‘cane’ which came down rather hard on the backs of her knees, and which naturally lost its potency by the time her third sibling was whacked, with tired arms, for the same offence. She was laughing heartily in the narration of it and lamenting the fact that, being the first born, she always had to bear the brunt of her mother’s annoyance.

Another good friend describes, with nary a grimace or scowl, his mother’s manner of enforcing law and order in the house. She kept a notebook, he said, where she would note the misconduct of each child – she had four of them. Come the week-end, the children had to fall in line. The offences were then read aloud and a cane dealt out the punishment in keeping with the misdemeanor.

Present day parents would be self-righteously shocked and offended at such a ‘crime’. Today it is a crime to enforce ‘corporal’ punishment on your child, which includes the occasional slap and is referred to as ‘Child Abuse’. Where and how did the change come about? When did it turn into a ‘crime’ to punish your child for whom you would, without second thought, give your life if the occasion demanded it?

Let me hasten to add that I am NOT referring to any form of excess that would border on `child abuse'.

In truth, when your child reminds you of the occasion on which you slapped him or whacked him, don’t you feel that twinge of conscience, which makes you cringe in shame? There is an overwhelming guilt too at the thought of that cute little mite, your child, and how the hell could you have been so cruel as to ‘slap’ him? Your immediate reaction is to hug him and say sorry for what you did ‘eons’ ago, or so it seems. In the absence of annoyance, fear or anger, the deed seems unforgivable and you yearn to make amends for it. 

Would a law, making your action a crime, have prevented you from committing it? Your guess, herein, would be as good as mine.

Parents are now leaning over to the extreme opposite. They bend over backwards to please their children and will not hesitate to gloss over or ignore lapses in discipline or even crass disobedience. The child’s happiness, they say, is more important. It is difficult for a child to even discern the line that separates right from wrong, much less adhere to doing the right thing without parental support. Leaving a child with decisions he is not empowered to take is, in my opinion, the easy way out and which unfortunately, is the norm, most of the time, among parents today. 

It is so much more difficult to feed a reluctant child with something healthy and child friendly, implement discipline or convince him to make the right choice. Parents themselves have to be regimented in order to impose discipline on their child. Moreover, it is definitely time consuming and mentally exhausting and requires tremendous mental and physical strength to bring up a child in, what one would construe, the right manner. Most parents today neither have the time nor the inclination to do it. The onus therefore rests on the shoulders of either grandparents or the teachers at school.

Grandparents are pre-warned to dump their systems of raising children and apply modern methods instead. Parents even cite various examples of lapses and mistakes made while they themselves were being raised, to prove their point. It is indeed surprising that our generation neither dared nor felt the need to point out their mistakes, to our parents. Parents since the beginning of mankind were never perfect and never claim to be so. Why then the post-mortem on how they raised their children and how imperfect they were? There are no guarantees attached to any means of raising kids. What would be ideal for one child might be disastrous for another resulting in serious repercussions. Passing judgment on a mode of parenting as an after-thought would therefore be both unfair and fallacious.

Teachers have a different tale to tell. Parents speak disparagingly of a child’s teacher in his presence without dwelling on the fact that irresponsible verbalization could well undermine the authority of the teacher and make it nigh impossible for him/her to exact obedience from the child at school. Parents also go to great lengths to ensure that the demands of their wards be met in school as well. They don’t demur in using threats to make certain of this. 

One of Britain’s top super heads, Dr Rory Fox of Ryde Academy shows how discipline can be enforced even by sparing the rod.

Dr Fox covered every aspect of a child's education and introduced a strict regimen of rules and regulations to enforce discipline. However, he rues the part played by parents in reinforcing indiscipline in their children.

One of Dr Fox’s biggest problems was not the children, but their parents, many of whom considered themselves exempt from the rules.

That said...

Whatever be your methods of bringing up a child be sure of one thing, at some point or the other in life your child will sit in judgment over them. He/she will read you your rights and anything you said or did or did not  say might be held against you in the final analysis. 

Chill!

C’est la vie, folks!

Friends Forever...

I have been empowered by the Universe to make friends easily! Does that sound weird? Not really? But I could think of no other way to phrase a natural ability without sounding affected or even pretentious. Several of the friends I made I have shed along life’s journey, not because they were unworthy or I was callous but due to the simple fact, twenty four hours ceased to suffice. Raising two little ones along with the responsibilities of home and hearth, were more exhausting than exciting, I confess, and further, usurped all my waking hours.

 However, a few of my friends remained at the periphery of my life and a quick letter or card during my precious minutes of leisure were all I could afford them and all they needed to keep in touch with me. They remained loyal and steadfast despite the isolated years of neglect.

Usha, my closest and best friend comes first and far ahead of all the others who follow. Dr Usha Kiran Rai, who I christened Ush! I admit, shrinking that beautiful name to a three letter appellation that could even denote impatience, if given a stern intonation, was not one of my best ideas. The name however stuck and she remains ’Ush’, to this day. Usha was the first friend I made in college and not entirely due to my prowess at making friends. She in turn calls me ‘Vins’, making me feel a winner.

Usha and I in 1991

Summer of 1970

It was the first day of college - St Xavier’s College, Bombay. I attended the introductory lectures in a haze. My head was aching and I felt feverish and unwell. Those were perhaps the first signs of the flu that would keep me in bed for the next three days. As I stood at Marine Lines Station waiting for the local train to arrive, a girl came up to me and rather sheepishly, asked me for a rupee. She was too well dressed to be seeking alms and spoke with a convent school accent. Still dizzy, I smiled and gave her the rupee.

 “My friend Nita,” she said, “was holding my purse while I used the restroom, and seems to have walked away with it.”

 I smiled again and croaked, ‘It’s ok!”.

I’ll return it tomorrow” she continued, “we are in the same class”, waving her hands to indicate the two of us. She didn’t give me her name and I felt too ill to give her mine.”

And more recently in 2014

The next three days found me in bed, with Mamma fussing around and coaxing hot chicken soup into me. Chicken Soup was Mamma’s cure, for all ailments. When I returned to college, Usha came to me at break and smiled as she returned the borrowed rupee. I was so glad to see her! Not because I had anticipated the return of the rupee as much as the fact that I had not a single friend in that class of hundred odd students.  First Year Arts it was! We exchanged names and I had found a friend. A friend who was to remain by my side no matter which ends of the world we were in. A friend for life!

Fast Forward to the Summer of '76!

Rajeev and I were married on the 14^th of July 1976. He had no leave to his credit, having spent all of it on trips to Bombay to meet his girlfriend.  I still giggle at the thought of it!  We had to wing it back to his unit at once.

Life in Ferozepur, a one horse town so to speak, after the hustle and bustle of Bombay, was a change I was unprepared for. Whoever had the time for such enquiry when sweet nothings were all we could think of

The moment we arrived and the Adjutant had conveyed the news to the Commanding Officer, he ordered Rajeev to proceed immediately to the OP area. (Operations Area). - War exercises were on and there was apparently a shortage of officers. No concessions whatsoever were made to accommodate newly married officers! The harsh reality of being married to the Army was just being revealed to me.

 Capt Rajeev Khullar moved to OP area without delay, leaving me alone in a large house with a large garden, allotted to Major Ramesh Nagpal. The army has a rule that does not allow allocation of houses to married officers under 25 years of age. Rajeev was 23. The other officers of the unit however were kind enough to lend their houses to us when they proceeded on their Annual Leave of 60 days. Thus we lived like Gypsies, until Rajeev’s 25^th birthday.

The very morning Rajeev left, an Officer in uniform came to visit me,

“Capt Khevinder Singh Brar, Maam” he said, saluting smartly.

 He wore a turban, as all Sikh officers do and spoke with a clipped accent. I returned his greeting, without the salute of course and before he could finish enquiring after my welfare and needs, bombarded him with a barrage of questions. Once again I was alone and friendless and here was this officer obviously sent to make sure I had no problems settling down. He answered all my queries and returned to work after refusing my offer of refreshment. He was both formal and correct in his manner. This was a far cry from Bombay’s unique form of friendliness.’ Bindaas’ is the word! I was learning, learning fast!

That evening another officer called on me.” Hello Maam,” he said.

 I said, “Hello” a hint of enquiry in my voice.

This was an officer in civvies - civilian clothing. Non-Sikh, I thought, seeing he was turban less and had a short crop of hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. I hesitated, waiting for him to introduce himself.

 He laughed aloud and said, ”Maam, you haven’t recognized me, I called on you this morning?” “Capt Khevinder Singh Brar at your service Maam!”

I blinked and blushed at the faus pas I’d made. All I could articulate was a lame, “Oh!’.

Out of uniform and turban Capt Khevinder Singh Brar was a distinctly different person.

This time, with his uniform, he had also shed his cloak of propriety and robotic disposition.

 Several meetings afterward, I asked him to stop ‘Maaming” or “Mrs KhullarIng” me and call me ‘Vinny’ and he asked me to call him ‘Khevi’. He is a good friend to this day! Another friend for life!

As chance would have it, both Usha and Khevi were born on the 19^th of November. 

The painting of the sketch

Very recently, Khevi found a sketch which I had copied from his Autograph book and mailed it to me. Since it was too small to share here, I dug out the painting I had made of the sketch, 38 yrs ago. During the melee of the ensuing years, it was neglected and folded away. Here it is along with a picture of Usha and myself taken in 1991, on one of my yearly trips to Benaras, where she now lives, and one, of the two of us in 2014.                            

C’est la vie!

Mistress of Spice, And Everything Nice..

Nothing to do, and all the time in the world to do it in! The fundamental dilemma of a dowager well past any `mid life crisis'. 

"Write a blog!" Sameer suggested. You have a lot to say, and we're done being your sounding boards. "Let the world enjoy those pearls of wisdom too!" Was he trying to get me off his back, I wondered. Of course he was, but the idea stuck.

Having earlier helped my son run his foodie website `Chef at Large', written some reviews and recipes for it, this appeared the next logical step. But what do I write about?

Let's start with familiar turf. Food. No, this is definitely not meant to be a cooking or a recipe blog per se, that much is certain. But it's a beginning. Truth be told, my whole life has been closely intertwined with cooking. Both my mother and my grandmother being keen cooks, my instinctive curiosity concerning the intrigues of the kitchen, was the natural fallout of my upbringing. So it's only befitting that I choose to begin thus!

My love for cooking arose from the kitchens of ‘East End’, in Cannanore (Kannur now), where my grandmother stirred and shook and whipped up the most delicious delicacies. The kitchen was old fashioned. Wood fires burned throughout the day and my grandmother who was called Mamu, by all her grandchildren, had to blow frequently through a long iron tube to coax the fires to blaze. 

Mamu was an excellent cook. Her stews, cutlets and fish curries were cooked to lip smacking perfection in that smoky kitchen where she frequently wiped her teary eyes with the end of her saree, which, curiously, she wore, Parsi style.(more on that some other time). 

There were other women by her side to aid the process. A large built woman named Tachi sat on the roughly tiled floor with a large grinding stone in front of her. Her only job was to grind the various masalas and coconuts to a fine paste. Turmeric, chillies, coriander seeds, cumminseeds, sesame seeds, poppyseeds, ginger, garlic, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, were all ground fresh, everyday, on that gigantic stone. 

Mamu, 80 at the time, would sigh as she bent to check if the coconuts had been ground to the fine paste she needed. There was another woman to pound the jaggery along with grated coconut and roasted and powdered rice powder to make the most delicious ‘Ari undas’. Mamu would laboriously press the mixture, after over an hour of pounding, into large ‘laddoos’, which my brother and I eagerly devoured as soon as the first ones were made.

Mamu's Writing

The long dining table at 'East End', covered with a white damask table cloth, was always laden with food. Breakfasts were enormous and everyone seemed to eat everything. Eggs fried sunny side up, toast, butter and jam were the standard fare, accompanied by the main dish which could be anything from Dosas and idlis to vellappams, iddiappams, puris and potato curry, rice rotis with the fish or mutton curry that had been cooked the previous night, puttu (rice cakes)and ‘kadala’( black chickpea) etc etc- the list is long. Cooked Oats and milk and sugar sat in a corner for anybody who felt the urge to eat 'light'. Nothing was wasted, as the servants were all fed in the kitchens after each meal.

I often slept with my grandmother snuggling against her softness, savouring the smells of the kitchen that enveloped her person. Even though I had a poor appetite and had to be scolded and cajoled to eat, I loved the Minced Meat Cutlets my grandmother served with locally made loaves of bread generously spread with fresh, white, home-made butter. 

I still have the recipe, handwritten by Mamu in her meticulous style, her handwriting closely resembling the cursive writing books of the time. Paraphrased by me, it can be accessed at

http://chefatlarge.in/recipes/grandmama's-minced-meat-cutlets/

Mamu, of course, is long gone. As is her daughter, my mother. But the aroma of her kitchen still lingers. Her labours, honed to a fine art, live on in me. Of course I must pass these on, for that's how it works. And as I hand the torch to Gen Next, Mamu smiles at the assured immortality.

C'est la vie!