In this memoir, Ramola Shetty explores her family’s complicated relationships through the lens of cooking, consuming, and control.
My mom doesn’t cook anymore. She used to when I was younger.
Mom cooked basic south Indian food that made sure we were fed. I can’t compare her cooking to a chef’s, nor can I describe it with a passion – not like how most people describe their mother’s food. The best description I can provide is that it was basic. It kept us fed, healthy, and it wasn’t gross.
She cooked school lunches and dinners like a mandatory chore, which it was. But during festivals, she shook things up by cooking up chaotic delights. During Diwali, she would cook these steamed slimy flat rice pancakes stuffed with jaggery and shaved coconut. Cooking this dish was her personal Diwali challenge.
I would watch her like my own Diwali reality TV show. She would cook mountains of these sweets for guests and for us. She would turn the house upside down with chaos and drama. And then, she would turn up with just these basic sweets. Some were way too slimy, some were way too sweet and some were way too dry. But with practice, you figured out how to pick the most balanced one. Either way, the sweets did just enough by giving us swollen bellies and a sugar high.
The ogre and his impact
But of course, all of this had to come to an end because of my demonic ogre of a father. He criticised her cooking incessantly. He was like an unsatisfied fat king. My mom and I studied his criticism meticulously. We tried to decode exactly what his words meant and figure out how to make the food better. But eventually, I realised his criticism was all about power and control. Because he never actually gave accurate or helpful feedback that we could incorporate. It always sounded like an ogre spitting and screaming, almost proud that no one understood him. I wish my mom blocked his words and starved him but instead, she tried one last time. She would send me to his office like Red Riding Hood with a basket full of slimy jaggery Diwali sweets. As expected, this ogre insulted her food in the most unimaginative way possible and turned the food down publicly, much like a brat. To cover up, I would make up realistic-sounding stories to tell my mom. They were about how the ogre ate some of the food. But obviously, the ogre saw that coming. So, he’d call my mom and make it a point to tell her that he refused to eat her food.
The oath
As a reaction to his tantrums, my mom took a dramatic oath and stopped cooking. She declared she’ll never step in a kitchen again or bother turning the house upside down for a sweet dish ever again. I don’t think people missed her food much. It was that basic. I think most people probably forgot that she ever cooked.
None of the guests asked for slimy jaggery sweets again, except for me. It felt like a part of her had died or had been left behind. Cooking was a mundane activity that got banned and came to a tragic end, one I couldn’t experience with her anymore.
Why do we have to be experts at everything? Why can’t we just be basic in some things? Why can’t we appreciate our mundane routine mandatory activities?
The only time my mom shared her basic food knowledge with me again was when I went to university. She taught me how to cook for survival.
Breaking the oath
A few months ago, the oath was broken. My mom cooked again. This time, it was for my father the ogre. We were in Mangalore, living under the same roof again after aeons because of a mandatory pooja we had to attend. On the last day, my father had a sudden urge to eat jungle chicken and fish curry. He demanded to be fed immediately. Everyone started cooking in a panic. My mom stepped into the kitchen and became an extra, a helping hand.
She was a vegetarian helping to cook a meaty meal for an ungrateful and loveless man. I don’t think anyone there understood the gravity of this. I held back from demanding that my mom stop cooking for a person who was perpetually unfulfilled. I didn’t want to control my mom’s actions like my dad did. I’m not sure if my mom conceded from choice or because she was forced due to her circumstances. I stepped out and played with the dog, avoiding the whole household and imagining it didn’t exist. Either way, I just stayed with the dog until it was all over.
My fantasy was interrupted when I was summoned to accompany my dad, the ogre, for his meal. I sat beside him and looked at his messy plate with a mountain of fish bones. I just couldn’t help myself from imagining him choking on a fish bone. I thought about how they could practically work as needles. But, unfortunately, none of that happened and he continued devouring his food. It was then somehow that I also realised, he wasn’t a god, just an ageing ogre losing his power.