Avanti Sopory
Gentle breeze sways the boat, not without the helmsman’s oar
True for a boat or true for running a household.
This is true. At least for the one where I would spend the four months of my years….and every year. Procuring and preparing. Such a smooth seamless transaction and distribution of responsibilities between two sexagenarians.
It’s still 7 o’clock in the morning. The silver wavy haired gathers the pleats of her cotton sari, to tuck them through the drawstrings of her petticoat and stoops to check the vegetable basket in the refrigerator. While the grand man sits at his place, resting his head on the already oil-stained wall and his tender back on the Mughal styled white bolster. So begins the epic conversation between the two heads of my maternal family…What to cook? There is nothing novel about the topic. I agree. Every Indian household flags of the day with this question. But something holds me back here.
Their morning kitchen drama remains etched in my memory. Even still; after twenty five years. For when the grand couple conversed – it was telling not giving sermons; asking but not questioning; calling but not commanding. Their voices traversed between the kitchen and the bada kamra, brushing the other residents with the feather soft sounds of their parents. It had become a morning ritual between the two, while the broods rushed through their morning chores. Uncles and Aunt’s raced against the time, to reach to the finish line; whilst grand man and his better half tossed the names of roghanjosh, yakhni, spinach, lotus-stem, khol-khol, liver, brain, gurda-kapura, red beans and all things Kashmiri between them; just like a cupid-stuck couple, who are unmindful of the onlookers. This did not happen over a morning cuppa, but exactly after grand man had offered bougainvillea petals to Shiva and the grand lady had her perambulatory return from the Rupaiya Mandir.
What I now begin to write is not for the weak hearted. Not for someone who likes to lick and relish that plate of roghanjosh but faints at the thought of visiting Ghani Puj. Yes …that’s the name of the trusted butcher the grand man visited, almost every day. I was the grand man’s chaperone to the ‘meat mall’, which stood at the cross road of Khati-Ka-Talab. A visit, which taught me the economics of emptying grand man’s pockets over a dead lamb’s liver and pounded my heart at the sight of the wobbly red pyramid now-lifeless piece. That’s a different story, how the small kitchen of the custodian house, made me lick my plate with my bare fingers, after the same quivery piece was shallow fried with sliced onions and served with fried parantha’s; copy right to which is still owned by Naniya. Bless your soul.
Many monsoons’… err… snows’ ago, grand man held my index finger and interlocked them in his deftly Urdu fingers; tips of which were always smudged with black ink because he ran the first Urdu newspaper of Jammu. Grand man never considered his big nose as a Kashmiri embellishment but with pink cheeks, he fitted the bill. My own Frontier Gandhi lookalike would leave house with two hand bags, mortifying Naniya’s trousseau collection. 300 kms away from the freezing land of Dal, I was walking in the ratio of 1:2, while we passed through the stinky open drains on the borders of the narrow by lanes. Greeting everyone in Dogri, Kashmiri, Punjabi and Hindi.
We reached at the lowest step of the flight, taking us to the theatre of life and death. The place had an array of shops on both sides with butchers chopping parts like an artisan.
Grand man towered and I followed him, till he stopped at Ghani Puj. Often as a kid, I wondered why was he his favourite? Was it because he killed them gently? Irrespective a kill is a kill. What more to state the truth than the drains which gushed with the blood of the animals. It was ghoulish and I wished to throw up. The hollow carcass hung upside down. Their eyes ogled at me, hoping that I might come to rescue them…But how? I wondered until I got my answers… In Naniya’s kitchen. By cooking them on gentle flame, tender them with love and affection, stir them fondly and serve them to a hungry soul. Because what grand lady cooked was for the soul.
That small kitchen was her workshop, just like an artist. The vessels were her canvas, red pepper, turmeric, salt, cloves, sauf powder, cinnamons were some of the colours she utilized to make her master piece. It wasn’t a superficial activity, but a job she loved doing. She transmitted her positivity and spiritual self into the cauldron. She had found the perfect balance of grahastra and sanyaas ashram. Every day she conducted havan in her household through the flames on the gas stove, epitomizing that satisfying an empty stomach and empty soul is akin to worshipping the Almighty.
We stepped out of the meat mall, carrying the exact parts of mutton pieces for the precise recipes in one of the two bags. We crossed the lane and stood next to the vegetable seller. The freshness of coriander and mint wafted across the lane. Grand man choose his picks. And I stood wondering if there could be an aerial jugalbandi between the meat shops and the veggie shops. What would they cook? I wondered. Of course, nothing better than what Naniya cooked! What a horrible concoction, I pinched myself.
Grand man and I reached home to Naniya. She bombarded him with all the updates, visitors and the most sacrosanct calls from DAVP for advertisements in his newspaper. He handed over the bag and the grand lady of the house grabbed the knife to get started.
The artist started and finished only when she reached the finish line. For us the wait was endless. We could not put our gastronomes to rest. Even the aroma of her cooking venting out from the oil stained, iron meshed kitchen window did not help much. The fumes from her kitchen exhausted in the lane outside and purified the lane with the holy smoke from her place of worship.
Her sagacious sense always guided her on judging what got best cooked on which facility; not that there were many back then. Like the quintessential Kashmiri Dumaloo got cooked very well on the even and slow heat of a heater. The holes that she had pierced in the boiled potatoes would easily let the amalgamated mustard oil and the spices, run through the labyrinths inside the potato. When served, the connoisseur punctured the potato for the masala burst.
Her kitchen could give any present day modular kitchen a run for its money. It was Naniya’s dexterity and agility that worked through those iron cupboards and aluminum boxes. Behind the kitchen door rested all the big canisters holding up the cereals and eagerly waiting to get out of that stuffy corner. No fancy Tupperware or Ikea lit up the shelves but there were the reused Complan and Lipton refills, which housed many other groceries. Uff!! And the number of times the good old hearth got remodeled is not even funny. Modern tiles, shiny new taps, marbled floor could not eclipse the warmth which was invincible.
A thriving household and not even a whimper or a wrinkle upon their face. Shakti in Shiva. Grand man and his wife strummed a melody in the mayhem of the big Indian joint family.
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