perspective

As a child, I had a love-hate relationship with food. I hated fruits and vegetables (there were exceptions), loved chicken drumsticks and shrimps, and took an inordinate amount of time to finish eating. But, I was not definitely a foodie child. My interests in food emerged as I grew up. But, as a teenager growing up in the nineties Kolkata, there weren't a whole lot of avenues to express my interest in food. I wasn't interested in cooking then. 

I dismissed cooking as a "stereotypical" woman's work, something that relegates women to a life of drudgery. My mother's disdain for cooking also contributed to that kind of an understanding. My mother happens to be one of those women who can make an extremely tasty meal, while hating the act of cooking with all her might. I am not going into that in details in this post, because I have a chapbook full of poems which deal with the issue: the complex relationship women have with food and cooking.

But, the fact of the matter is, I grew up without any knowledge of cooking. But I was a curious eater. As a teenager, I loved to explore different kinds of street-foods. The fact that my father was somewhat of a foodie, although without much opportunities to expand his culinary horizon beyond what was available in Kolkata to post-Partition refugee kids, helped too. There were also other foodies in my life then -- my uncles, older than me, but quite a bit younger than my parents-- who introduced me to the so-called "taboo" foods. 

During my college and university days, I explored some more. But, the thing is, the time when I was a student in Kolkata, there was no "foodie culture" as such. We talked about food, as all youngsters do. We loved to eat. Our economic means were extremely limited in those days. And within those limitations, we explored. But, we did not develop a conscious discourse around it, in the way I see it happen these days in both India and America. What I see as the development of a deliberately developed foodie culture. I do have an understanding of why that is. But, I wouldn't like to go here. It's a subject for a whole different post altogether.

But, even then, I did not know how to cook. It wasn't until I came to US, that I began to experiment in the kitchen. My mother taught me one thing before I left -- the easiest possible chicken curry (murgir jhol). The rest, whatever, I know today, comes from my own consistent and inconsistent engagement with the ingredients in the kitchen. And, I am proud of that. I do not have endless time to engage in culinary experiments. Nor do I have a budget for buying extremely expensive ingredients. What I make in my small kitchen are made out of everyday ingredients, available almost anywhere. Unless one considers the huge stash of Indian spices I have. So huge that even after not being able to go to India for good three years, I can probably cook for a whole army using those. 

In the last couple of years, I have consciously tried to improve my cooking. I have tried to diversify a little bit. I have tried to cook for complicated stuff. Some have come out better than others. And I have often wondered, what is it about me that made me so interested in cooking? If anyone had told my fifteen year old self, that I would begin to take an active interest in cooking at the age of thirty-one, I would have probably spat on that person. So, this is something that intrigues me when I try to figure out my own evolution as a human being.

And I think I have finally figured it out. Cooking is the only thing that I do, the only form of creative expression, that does not involve words. I am an academic by day, writer by night. Consequently, my life is word-heavy. Cooking is possibly the only thing which I can do without having to think of the implications of language. I can play with my hands, touch the ingredients, see them mix with each other, marvel at their changing colors. And, I don't have to use a single word during the whole process. 

I am still thinking-- i might just pick up a couple of other hobbies which do not involve words. All suggestions are welcome.