The Cook who nearly cooked me

Has anyone heard of a cook specialising in Brahmin cuisine? How a need became a nuisance? I was on the lookout for a person who could help me with the cooking. Ideally I needed a part-time cook but no one could fit that bill easily because mine was a joint family with specific requirements of the religion and caste of the would be help.This narrowed the availability of potential candidates considerably. But I continued to ask around till my mother in law thought of the lady in question.The family was known; hence there would be no danger of hiring an unknown person. M as I will call her was a formidable lady, with regard to both appearance and character.But her abilities in the culinary area were unknown and untested.Since I was having guests and could do with some help, I thought, " why not try her out?"  She agreed to come on terms of a daily rate basis for the duration of the guests' stay.The probation period passed off uneventfully and to my tired system and psyche, she seemed a veritable godsend. It was the beginning of a new month and I got down to the tiresome been business of negotiating terms with her." Not a pie less than 8000, she said. " You have a need and me too. I cannot come for less because I have to pay for a Chit scheme that I have joined. Also please pay me additionally for the period of the guests' stay"..I agreed - my despair was her weapon, something which I was to come up against time and again  in the course of my dealings with her.

        In this manner, M came on board heralding the start of quite a tumultuous innings." For me, cooking for ten people or two people is just a matter of less than one hour",she would say airily.Well may she claim because the kitchen resembled a battlefield, with spattering of oily garnish, cooked dal, vegetable peels, tamarind waste;  grimy remnants of a grubby job.l pointed this out to her." Madam, you did not mention that I had to clean up", was the rejoinder. "Anyway since you are particular, give me a mop", with which she perfunctorily wiped the counter top and flung into a corner. For M, cleaning up post cooking was a matter of dragging with her feet,the rag over any floor spill and subsequently  using the same cloth minus rinsing to clean the counter top.

   More fun was in store." I don't work on Sundays. If you want me to come, please pay 200 bucks extra per Sunday", she announced peremptorily. I shrugged haplessly, helpless in the manner of an insect caught in the coils of a predator. One morning, in the course of grinding idli batter, she said brightly," Your grinder is worn out, needs to be replaced.It tskes very long to grind the batter. Buy me a new one or manage with store bought batter". Caught in the midst of a nagging health problem, I had realized by now that in hiring M, I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Diwali was round the corner.A month's salary as Diwali bonus, I was told. ," Also Maami, please get me a silk cotton saree with Kala Niketan border.But Meena, I am not a corporate to afford such fabulous gifts", I muttered feebly, timidly wondering what was in store if I refused to oblige." Ma'am", M said darkly. You wanted a Brahmin cook, a tag  for which  people are ready to pay. If I leave this job, l can get another like this," with a careless flick of her fingers. " Yesterday, one lady offered me 8000 bucks for just making rice, one curry and rasam.l don't even have to grind coconut masala or idli  batter".  " Also maami, from tomorrow I will be coming to work at 5.30 AM since I have to go to the other place to work".By now I had learnt that M had me wrapped around her little finger,- she could make ATD ( any time/ all time demands) and I would just give in.

When I related my tale of woe to my husband, " Sack her " was his advice." She is charging by the hour like a lawyer or accountant  and the work is shoddy to say the least".  But l dithered and a year went by with M calling the shots at every opportunity.Then as I handed her pay packet  at the end of the month, M said carelessly, " I have completed one year in this job.I want a salary hike of 2000 bucks".I was struck dumbfounded at the sheer audacity of the demand. " But Meena, this is surely preposterous" was all I could manage to stutter. " Maami  it's your choice. If you don't give this raise, l'll not be continuing with you ", she trailed off.

This time I turned to my friend Sheela for advice. But she was quite unfeeling and unsympathetic." The  Pay Commission could do with a member of your Cook's abilities. Watch out. She's going to demand arrears with retrospective effect”, she sniggered. I didn't find it funny. But my mind was in a turmoil.  The time had come to take the bull by the horns. That night as I tried to sleep, a gamut of thoughts ran through my mind.Could I manage without the cook? Would l be able to take on the additional physical strain  especially after a leisurely lull?

I rose in the morning, a new person. A new strength and a conviction of purpose possessed me as I proceeded to open the  door to let the cook in." Welcome Maami ", I said in my sweetest ever manner, " to your last day of work ".

She lives on.......

She was mostly silent except for the stressed laboured breathing emanating from a strained heart. Her tawny coat shone with numerous massages of John son Baby oil. Her beady black eyes glistened in a typical Labrador face framed by two tawny overhanging ears looking steadfastly ahead as she lay in her favorite posture, her paws stretched out with her face tucked in between.As time wore on, she would breathe more peacefully, turn over on her side with a sigh and go to sleep.

   She loved to wander around in the garden and come back now and then to the shelter of the garage for a comfortable snooze.When she was a pup, the trainer had asked if we wanted her inside or outside the house  and I had said that we wanted her outside without understanding what it was all about. I was to know soon enough because she would be at her post at the gate after dinner keeping fierce  guard although a gentler dog was  difficult to come by.

       Betsy had a keen sense of time to the minute. You could tell the time of the day going by her routine. At six in the morning, she would be with the cook at the door waiting to be let in. As soon as I opened the door, she would dash past the cook like a streak of lightning to take her position in the kitchen. There would be a Wait and Watch time frame during which I would be required to prepare and serve her breakfast. She would start fretting and pestering for her food only when I exceeded the Grace time. After that it was Walking time, no matter what pressing job you had at hand. Having finished her morning routine, she would go her way, only to pop in for the occasional pat and a quick snooze under the stairs or on her favourite perch- again the staircase step. This was a good vantage point from where she could survey all goings- on in the house without getting in anybody's way.Similarly was she punctual for her other meals-- enacting a routine with clockwork precision day after day,year after year.

 She would pad in whenever she wanted a little bit of petting. But if you didn't have the time for that, she was fine with a quick, warm pat, content to lie at your feet or close by, the very picture of serene tranquility.

      There were occasions when she would feel hungry out of turn ( labs anyway feel hungry all the time- a bowl full of rice would  disappear in no time and the next moment , they would be ready for the next feed). This particularly happened when she was due for a course of de-worming. She would merely want just that extra slice of bread or that  chappathi piece and she had her own way of ensuring that she got it. She would purposefully come into the kitchen, sit on her haunches and look at you unblinkingly and unwaveringly as if to say, " So, when are you going to give that  small thing to me. Be done with it and I'll be on my way". She knew exactly where the loaf of bread was placed in the pantry and her head would shoot up, the moment she heard the ever so faintest rustle of the bread wrapper. She would get up and edge closer to the kitchen but one firm, " Betsy, go to your place", would send her to her corner under the stair. She would settle there and give me a look, " Done. Now what about finally getting that bit of bread". Even in moments of great temptation, she was the most obedient dog ever.

 She went away too soon, too suddenly, foul victim of a harsh health condition that wouldn't let her live. She passed on peacefully, one last wag of that gentle tail as if to say ,"Bye! Thank you for all that you did for me". My feelings got the better of me-- all along I had been in a state of apprehensive preparedness, given her health condition yet here she was so content, so comfortable with whatever we had provided her.

 Betsy may have gone but she lives on in our midst. Whenever I open a door, I can't help putting my head around as if looking for that familiar friendly  figure ready to pad in with that gentle yet diffident look in her unblinking eyes.She has left a void difficult to fill....

A Precious Sapling

A Voice from the past

The other day,  being my birthday, my school friend Bula called up from the US   to greet me. Her relief was apparent." I have been trying desperately to reach you", she said. " Luckily you responded to my post on Facebook  with your phone number. I badly wanted to talk to you. A busy doctor in the US, she had  been trying to reach me at my old landline which had been defunct for some time now. It has been almost six years since we had discovered each other as well as many others on Social media but with our mutual daily grinds, we had little time to catch up. But still she remembered her old school chum and had gone to considerable trouble to touch base with her. At the end of our conversation, she promised to look me up when she visited Bangalore

   That touched me. Here was somebody from my distant childhood who wanted to nurture an old sapling of friendship. When you are over the hill, every passing birthday is a mere reminder of yet another year forever sliding into the pages of History, yet another wrinkle that is waiting to appear or a crease furrowing the forehead.  A time like the beginning of a New Year to ponder on the the past and wait for the future to unfold.The small joys and thrills of schoolgirlish  pursuits, absurdly silly pranks have been deleted into an unerasable past by one single key of adulthood. A distant perhaps fading memory of a distant childhood in a distant city where childish promises of friendship were made only to be forgotten in the ceaseless grind of building up one's life and career. That is how generations have lived and will continue to live in the future because that is the order of life and there can be no exception. In your middle age, when greetings pour in from friends on personal occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, remember that your day is made in more sense than one. It's time to waft guiltlessly and luxuriously into the fragrances of a carefree glorious childhood and be rejuvenated by the emotions of unconditional love and acceptance. Bula's call and warm wishes  from other friends brought us closer though we may live oceans apart. A caring thought and a warm gesture- surely the best Birthday Gift one could wish for !

Rare kriti on a famous temple - The Hindu

Rare kriti on a famous temple - The Hindu

The Grandstand

Bandstands were round geometric structures constructed in parks where people congregated to listen to a musical band in the eveni gs after a leisurely stroll through leafy glades and colorful flower beds. A feast for the eyes and ears. A favourite pastime of our colonial legacy, one can conjure up images of staid Englishmen stiffly. tapping their feet as the band played out silky smooth strains of ever popular songs. Music was in harrnony with nature and who better than the Englishman knew  how to enjoy this soulful concoction while lounging in the lawns after a lazy Sunday picnic. 

The British left. People continued to listen to the music at the Bandstand in the Bangalore of the fifties and sixties. The formal musical band, a relic of the British era was replaced at times by the guy singing with gusto while strumming the ubiquitous guitar. The generations of post Independence India grew up on such musical fare .In theBangalore of today, the Cubbon Park Bandstand stands out majestically in the midst of verdant greenery giving a vigorous architectural edge to the landscape But that's about it! It remains a lofty but mute testimony, of a bygone era The Bandstand has gone silent An eerie feeling creeps over me as I gaze at this majestic structure in the heart of Cubbon Park, surround by an endless cacophonv. of noises from the Metro civil works that is going on, the harsh honking of bus horns, scooters and autos  as they scale concrete overpasses Scraps of paper fly around Cubbon Park even as lush green lawns are littered with mindless plastic bags containing stinking food leftovers and other forms of human waste. Stunned to silence, the proud citadel looks on at the widespread desecration and devastation around it The spaces have gone as has the music of yesteryears.Will sornebody revive the music, the only oasis in this desert of Mindless Commercialisation.Like the Solitary Reaper, the music of yesteryears in my heart, I bore long after it was heard no more....... 

Rare kriti on a famous temple - The Hindu

Rare kriti on a famous temple - The Hindu