Kitchen King ho……ya Kitchen Queen..

Picture this:

Wife is in the middle of finishing her Sunday late afternoon kitchen chores, wanting badly to rush under the shower, running up and down, with her eyes on the wall clock and sleeves of the already ‘wet-with-sweat’ nightie wiping off the stubborn sweat on the forehead that keeps coming.

It is a sultry, hot Kolkata afternoon with the exhaust fan totally gone and surely she wants to catch up some nap on a Sunday afternoon.

Hubby arrives to the relief of the wife (they can now quickly have the lunch and have a nap). But her hope is short lived. Hubby is here with his old lost and found class friends whom he met at the bus-stop corner and has invited them for lunch. To add to the misery, he says, “I just got these fish which my friends liked, I think some fish fry will go very well with the mango daal which you have prepared”.

A volcano erupts from the top of HER head but she is still silent, offers some sharbat to the guests and excuses herself quickly to her bed room to change her clothes while showering the volcano ash on her children who are stuck to the television. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Only you have the right to lie down and I am supposed to only work?”

Friends, I am not into any debate on gender roles. I intend to note down some of the funny kitchen tales I have eye-witnessed.

My Ma and Baba had the unsaid rules written very clear. On week days Ma did the vegetable and fish shopping and on weekends Baba got the vegetable along with the ‘Maangsho’ (Chicken/ Mutton). My darling dad would always return, beaming while narrating to his wife, how he outsmarted the mutton seller who tried to sell lamb’s meat . “Bhera r maangsho dichchilo beta…aami bujhe gechi…aami dekhe shune khaashi enechi!” I don’t have suitable words to explain this sentence, honestly. I don’t find a suitable English for the Bangla ‘Beta’. (It is not ‘My Son’, please).

Baba would often ask, just as soon as he finished his Sunday breakfast, “Ki torkari aanbo, bole daao”. (Tell me what vegetables should I get). My mother would first mumble to herself, “Pete gelei shuru” (she meant that he did not have the patience; just as the breakfast is finished, he wants to go). Then she would announce from the kitchen, “Look in the refrigerator and decide what you should get”. To that my wise and patient dad would reply, “Okay, I will wait, tell me when YOU have the time”. That would make my Ma all the more angry and she would march to the fridge, all the way listing the vegetables which needed to be bought. Dad’s mission accomplished!

On the days when it really got late and Ma would be really tired, Baba would, by his own fate, return from the market with tiny little fish (which needs a lot of effort cleaning). My mother would shower all her anger on the vessels and the sink-tap while mumbling, “Khaao…rosher khaaoaa khaao…!”, while I stood at a distance and offer any help she needed!

Well, this gap between the ‘Kitchen manager’ and the ‘Gatherer’ transcend geography and generation.

Ofcourse, in Bengal, the Babus love to go to ‘Bajaar’ early in the morning before going to office so their wife could finish some cooking before they left for ‘Duty’. “Bhaat kheye jaaoaa”, in other words, “Having rice before leaving home” is an important event, an auspicious one too! One should never leave home without eating, if you leave home empty stomach, you are bound to remain hungry throughout the day!

The kitchen rules at the Iyer household is more participatory. Mr and Mrs Iyer both wear the sleeves of the Kitchen Manager. Mr Iyer loves to shop…and stock: at a whole sale rate. So there comes 5 Kg of tomato for a family of two. “We anyway need so much of tomato”. It is no use attempting to explain that rotten tomatoes are of no use! Mr Iyer’s hands would fish out most rotten and ripe bananas, tomatoes and potatoes from the seller and this continued to remain the reason for arguments between the happily married couple.

Well, it was another time when Mr and Mrs Iyer lived in a plush, large house of their own. Later when they shifted to the Pigeon House in Mumbai to join their son and daughter-in-law, old habits of Mr Iyer transported itself with him.

In the pigeon house of a home, Mr Iyer found his Military Connection and started stocking the home with supplies from his Canteen. So six Harpics, ten body soaps, Kilos of dry fruits, shavings creams, talcum powders, spices and much more started occupying the little space. It only made the two Iyer ladies madder. “Dad, there is no war declared, we can buy the supplies every month” the daughter in law pleaded, into deaf ears.

Mr Singh and family are ardent Shiv worshippers. On Shiv Ratri, the entire family observes fast. So while going home for lunch, he decided to carry 5 kilos of bananas, 1 kilo for each member, according to him. His two sons, thinking on similar lines, carried 2-3 kilos bananas each, while they were returning home. The daughter-in-law, being the kitchen manager, bought another 4 kilos. So, here is a family who think alike! Happy FASTING, Singh Saab!

I am sure there are these interesting anecdotes in each one of our lives; while I keep gathering these from my family and friends, I really need to sweat it out this weekend to make space for the 75 kilos rice that has been ordered by my family members to accommodate in my match box size kitchen, wish me luck friends and Happy Space Management.