Let me tell you a story. In a land far far away lived a little girl. Radhika is a cheerful, happy girl who loves playing in the mud, climbing trees, stealing mangoes from the neighbours trees, eating juicy tamarind from the store room, digging into Amma’s avakai chetti and taking away a few pieces of the delightfully spicy, tangy mango pieces. She loved to eat. Which you would have figured by now.
She loved to eat hot rice with ghee and avakai pickle, in exactly her mother’s combination. Not an extra drop of ghee or the pickle! It was always perfect! She loved to eat the bottle son-papdi the old man sold on his cart at the corner of her street. She relished every bite of the sweet guavas cut and tossed with chilli powder and salt! The summer season meant eating copious amounts of mangoes. The winters meant til laddoos. The rainy season was spiced with hot hot bajjis and pakoras. The spring brought with it the Ugadi pachchadi, the mango sherbet, buttermilk and lots of boondi laddoos, Mysore pak, mixture, manoharams…. Aaahhh…. The seasons of festivities! For everyone else it was about the clothes and new items for the house, for Radhika it was the food!
Every morning, it was her ritual to step into the kitchen and ask for what the days menu was. Not like it mattered to her because her mother made only the best and most perfect dishes in the world! And she was always hungry for Amma’s food!
Soon Radhika grew into a beautiful young lady and everyone in her family started the tedious process of getting her married. After going through many “boys” photos and horoscopes, everyone finally settled for Deepak! He was a quiet man who would just sit on a chair and smile. Would nod his head in response to any question and would only look down at his shoes afterwards.
Radhika liked him and he too confessed that he was in love with her! And immediately afterwards they were married. What a spectacle their wedding was! Everyone in the neighbourhood was in attendance. Family and near ones travelled from across states to attend the wedding. There was laughter, singing and dancing all around!
And there was a feast for everyone! Every meal had two or three sweets, assorted vegetable curries made with hand ground spices and served with an assortment of breads and rice. Hot bajjis and bondas accompanied the dishes along with papads and pickles. Radhika’s mother supervised the entire kitchen and ensured that all of Radhika’s and Deepak’s favourite dishes were prepared to perfection!
After the wedding, Radhika moved into her marital home and for the first time in her life she felt absolutely lost! You see, she loved eating, but never learnt cooking! Fortunately and unfortunately for her, she moved to a city with only Deepak! No one to help her or teach her! Deepak being the gentle, patient man that he was quietly drank the Upma she made on the first day in their kitchen! Radhika couldn’t understand why the rava and the onions and the water just floated together and didn’t combine together as an upma should. Her maid came home that afternoon and laughed and laughed and laughed till tears rolled down her eyes!
“Amma Radhika, you should put all this on the gas and light the gas to cook the food!”
The maid’s laughter echoed in Radhika’s head and burned itself deep into her being! She swore to herself that before the end of the month, she will learn to cook an entire meal and feed this silly maid too!
Thus began Radhika’s adventure in the kitchen! Today when her children are all grown up and married, they proudly proclaim how wonderful their mother’s cooking is. She self taught herself in making North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, Italian and every other cuisine she came across in her Grihashobha. She knew exactly what every person in her family liked. How they liked their coffees to how they wanted their chapathis to how they liked each sabzi she made. She made her kitchen her kingdom and stocked it with every conceivable spice and masala! This was her territory and no one dared venture here! She loved the power she wielded over her culinary skills! She prided in her innate ability to taste a dish and replicate it in her kitchen! She would know exactly who liked what kinds of food. And this included her “foreign” daughter-in-law who grew up on a healthy diet of breads and cheese! Radhika would know how much spice she could tolerate and opened her daughter in law’s palate to the flavours and cuisines of India! She also knew that her grandchildren loved their rasam with ghee and dal and that it needed to be mashed in the exact amount of softness that would melt in their mouths and would demand more of it, although their bellies were full.
Radhika not just conquered her kitchen, she ruled it! She knew every inch of her kitchen like the back of her hand. She also knew exactly how much was stocked in her kitchen! Every gram and morsel was accounted for.
Today, Radhika still loves to cook and eat whatever is prepared, just that she has, over the years of caring and catering to her family, forgotten what she loved most! When you ask her today what is her favourite dish, she smiles and pushes a strand of hair from her face and says, “I’m okay with anything.”
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