One day in my M.A. classroom, a professor was teaching Emily Dickinson’s “She Sweeped with Many-Colored
Brooms”, and I was scribbling a poem of my own in the last page of my notebook.
I stared up, not looking at anything in particular, unaware that my gaze was in
direct contact with that of the professor. He asked me, “Do you sweep at home?”
“Yes”, I replied. “Girls usually sweep”, was his response. Unable to control
the rising adrenaline and noradrenaline within me, I replied without being asked, “I sweep
because I live alone, I cannot afford a maid (irrespective of my issues with
cheap labour), and I like a clean room. I don’t think it has got anything to do
with me being a girl. I am sure, any responsible human would do so.” I do not
remember what happened next as my response was ignored. I went back to writing
my poem. Do you realise what happened in those few minutes? My developing sense
of responsibility was overshadowed by my social sex, my gender, and its role in this society. That, my
friend, is the pathetic society we live in.
As a growing kid, I was not really guilty of not wanting to help
my mother in the kitchen. I watched her wash raw fish, I got her detergent
to wash the sink later, I kept the washed utensils back in their spots, but
never did I offer her any help when it came to cooking. As a teenager it felt
weird, because my friends were being ordered into the kitchen. My mother never
did that to me. If she spoke about her kids learning to cook, which included my
elder brother along with me, she said, “You should know how to cook so that you
can survive alone.” I did not care. I
looked at my brother, who always experimenting in kitchen. He cooked an
entire lunch for Mom, Dad, and me, when we returned from Vellore one time (I think he was still in school, or perhaps beginning college). And
baking cake, that’s his forté. In the absence of my Mom, Dad took care of the cooking. As far as my ignorant mind was concerned,
cooking made me a conventional girl, something my friends hated because they
were forced into it. So, I stayed away from it, as much as I could.
One day when I was eighteen, I moved out from the comforts of my home. I
left my mom, and her cooking behind. I lived in a PG in Delhi, where food
habits were quite different from where I had spent my life till then. Not
surprisingly, I hated the food. Why did every curry taste the same? How
do people eat just Rajma-Chawal or Dal-Chawal? Where did the concept of a
proper meal go? I learnt then, food is for surviving, not for taste buds. The
year that followed, I denied staying in a PG that offered food. Tired of
sharing room for a year with zero privacy and lots of unwanted compromises, I
wanted to live alone. I was told, “You can live alone if you can cook for
yourself.” Cooking became a big problem, and the license to my freedom. No
matter how much you love junk food, you cannot have them thrice daily every
day, week, month, and year. I moved to another PG and then another, neither of
them provided food. I began with bread omelette as my staple diet for some days, and corn flakes helped at times. I learnt how to prepare pulao, and a couple of dry
curries. By the end of my graduation, my parents were sure I can survive with
couple of my friends who took turns with me to prepare meals that we shared.
After my graduation, I moved to Hyderabad and then began the struggle of
dealing with another level of food habits. Who eats rice in the morning,
irrespective of lemon or tamarind in it? Who eats that sour liquid, that seems
like Sambar but isn’t Sambar, with rice? Why was it happening to me, all over again?
This time I was adamant on getting myself a flat, not simply because of the food
but because, I lived in a tiny room with four beds pushed in. There was no
question of freedom of reading late night, and that is a big issue in my
head. The question that followed this time was, “If you keep cooking, how are
you going to study?” I replied, “how am I going to study, if I skip meals all
day?” After much searching and convincing, I got my parents to allow me to stay
alone in a room in a 2bhk, the other room taken by a girl who loves her privacy
as much as I love mine. No unnecessary interruption, no question on your life
style, complete freedom to switch on/off lights, and finally in the true sense,
a kitchen of my own where I can cook anything.
I want to eat pasta. I want to eat bitter gourd. I want to eat Gobi Manchurian. I want to eat something that is not Maggi at two in the morning. I want to have the classic pakode and chai when it rains. I can add as much cheese as I want, to my food. I can cook all of it, no matter what I want to eat, and I do not even have to wait for the stalls and restaurants to open in the morning or cry about the unavailability of good momos in Hyderabad. If that’s not brilliant, then what is? Some choose to crib, I choose to cook.
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| A recent serendipity while cooking a simple curry that became grand by the ingredients I kept adding! |
In five years of struggle for freedom and privacy, I fell in love with
cooking for the joy of independence it brought. I keep thinking, how grateful I
am to my parents who did not force me into cooking because I was the girl in
our house, and my brother for being the constant inspiration of experimenting
in kitchen. If he could, then why can’t I? My mom’s words still echo in my
ears, “You should know how to cook to survive alone, irrespective of being a
boy or a girl.” As much as some people are happy about my responsible life,
some tend to say, “You are a girl, it’s good that you know how to cook.”
I add the unsaid, “You are eligible for marriage now.” To others however, cooking seems to come naturally to a girl so they dismiss it as nothing. I do not accept it. I
didn’t learn cooking because I am a girl who is ultimately to be married off.
I learnt it because being a girl in this society isn’t easy, especially if she
prioritises freedom and privacy over other things. I can not let my gender
nullify something that I am so proud of: of turning from a reckless person into
a responsible one of sorts, as a part of being independent.
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