I love visiting Indian grocery shops here. The semblance to the markets back home which I innately long for, the crowd, the chaos and the hustle and bustle, gives me a rush. The familiar greens, not to be found in giant supermarkets, the wee bit unorganised stacks of vegetables and fruits, the casual conversation with the fellow shopper as I pick my choice of veggies, the smells and sights reminds me of a part of a world far away, where I grew up. I always overspent when I visit Indian shops, my shopping cart overladen so much so that I have to lug in the second one as one is not enough. Today as I skimp through the array of vegetables, my eyes fell on the plump pointy gourds glinting in the morning sunshine. Now pointy gourds are one of my favourite vegetables, a rare sight even in the Indian shops where I live. So I greedily fill up a bag of them, though they were overly priced.
At home as I scrape the rough skin of pointy gourds, a childhood memory completely takes over. I started cooking from a very young age, not because I was passionate about the culinary process but because of necessity and also as my parents were non fussy eaters and gave me complete control over the kitchen, cringing less that I made the kitchen messy or if my preparation was beyond edible. They never peeked into the kitchen to see what was going or never tried to kill the fun of cooking by a litany of advice, their only word of caution-stay safe. My mother often had this bout of gastric pain, she convulsed in agony, her face contorted as she rolled in the bed waiting for relief. In those days, I would venture into the kitchen whip up some dinner, if my father would be late from work.
On one such evenings I decided to make potol ( pointy gourd) and Alu ( potato) jhol (light curry with minimum spices). Those were days when I was still learning the basics of cooking, the right balance of spice,the importance of simmering the gravy until it reached your desired consistency. At dinner time, I served my father first as he was ravenous after long day at work, and he polished it off in minutes, his plate shining like a freshly minted coin. Then we both sisters sat together to eat our dinner. My sister pushed one morsel of rice in her mouth and in an instant threw it up, her face all puckered up. What was that? It is awful. It is like having half cooked vegetables in hot water, yuck. I was yet to eat so I skeptically tried it out, yes, it was disgusting, never tasted something so unpalatable. My ears burned in shame of cooking a tasteless meal, and serving it to my father. I couldn’t understand how my father ate it without a furrow in his brow.. Did he have enduring tastebuds or was it just that he didn’t want to see a mass of dark clouds on my face when he told me that my food was not up to the mark. When I asked him, my father who masked his emotions very well, brushed it off and said, it was not that bad. This memory hung onto my mind like coat in a peg, even now my sister teases me saying, remember that potol alu you cooked when we were children!
Now, I cook a decent simple soulful meal. But still once in a while I have my cooking disasters, the curry is too runny, the combination of spices gone wrong , those days I remember my father…he would have eaten with a world of complain..
Daily Dose of Shilpi 