By Sangeetha Bhaskaran
The diligent young man is scrubbing away in the kitchen when I enter to make myself a cup of tea. He attacks the fridge, moves aside the army of souvenir magnets, wipes the stainless steel coating. Then he opens the fridge to clean the trays. The button on the kettle clicks to let me know the water has boiled.
“What will Sanju bhaiya eat when he gets home?” He asks about the husband.
I turn to see him staring at a set of almost-empty trays, bottles of jam, wilted coriander leaves, masala powders past their expiry date and tubs of fruit pudding my daughter loves. Sitting sadly in a corner almost forgotten is a grilled chicken leg wrapped in cling film. I point to it. In an instant his face is clouded with concern and an expression that screams, How will that be enough? Without voicing his opinion, he shuts the door and moves on to scrubbing the kitchen sink. I have the urge to add that there will also be a gigantic bowl of salad accompanying the solo limb, but my pride intervenes and I shut up and exit the kitchen.
An hour later he’s gone, leaving behind a dusted and mopped house swathed in an aroma of citrus-lavender disinfectant. I sit on the couch annoyed, thinking to myself, “Stupid guy. Can’t he just mind his own business?” As I sit with a book that I’m trying to read, I find myself unable to get through the pages. My mind is itching. I’m the princess and there’s a pea stuck somewhere between the multiple layers of mattresses beneath me; a tiny seemingly insignificant nagging that isn’t going away. Cussing the poor chap is not bringing me any relief.
What is that pea? It’s been there for a while now. I try to relate the feeling to a memory in an attempt to locate its origin. When did I last feel this particular shade of irritation? A conversation with my mother-in-law appears like a possible piece to the puzzle. I was in India on a vacation and on the phone with her. After the obligatory polite banter, she casually slipped in a ponderous sigh, “Poor Sanju, what must he be eating for lunch and dinner?” A murky feeling floated into the long pause that followed. I wanted to be cocky and remind her that he had been in her domain for 28-years and that she ought to have taught him to do more than how to reheat rice and curry, but I chose to shut up.
Now, that misplaced anger comes gushing like another tributary to join the current rage-river. What’s that saying about never leaving an annoyed woman alone with her thoughts? It’s not a good idea; she will make explosive mountains out of a singular pea.
I remember once talking to a guy at the office I used to work at. His family was on a quest to find him a suitable bride. At one point when he mentioned how phulka-making was a key criteria, I giggled. He tried to laugh along as well, but I picked it as a cover-up and masked my horror well enough before retreating to my desk. It now feels like a different time — when I was unmarried and naive and so hopeful for a world for myself where I would never be on the receiving end of such expectations.
Yet here I am sitting on a couch and wondering why my culinary role has become such a vital parameter in the appraisal of my role as a wife.
Here’s the deal: I have no issues with some of the traditionally gendered expectations that we have of each other; he’s the sole breadwinner and I’ve give up work (for now) to raise our child, I’m in touch with his parents while he calls mine up on birthdays and special occasions, I nag and he broods. Because there are countless other ways in which we break such demarcated roles, rendering them insignificant and establishing ourselves as equals in a manner that doesn’t require justification. What irks me is the (cultural) unspoken assumption in Indian society where every third person is entitled to evaluate a wife based on an imaginary checklist. A wife’s culinary role is just one aspect of this checklist that runs on for pages, encompassing its own colossal list of questions: Does she make good chai? Does she feed her family leftovers? Does she use the right amount of oil — enough to provide taste and yet not too much to spike cholesterol levels? Does she ensure she is always there by his side thereby preventing the possibility of malnutrition or worse, starvation? Does she know how to make the halwa of fabled family recipe fame? Does she? Do I?
There are days when I wake up exhilarated about the prospect of dishing out a sumptuous lip-smacking meal and then there are days when the thought of entering the kitchen gives me a migraine and I resort to ordering from Zomato. I ought to have the freedom to choose: To cook or to opt for take out or to simply dine out, or go for the time saving two-minute Maggi or five-minute MTR. As someone who struggles in a multitude of ways to define herself beyond the ‘mere stay-at-home-mom’ label, I wish I was viewed as responsible enough to provide a decent level of nutrition to keep those dependent on me alive.
And then I call my mother on Skype every alternate day or so, usually around the same time in the morning.
I ask, “Whatcha doing mom”
It’s a fruitless question for which I already know the answer. I’ve heard it a thousand times and yet I cannot stop myself from asking, to hear my tired mother say the words; what she’s doing then, what she’s doing almost all the time — her duty entrenched in exhaustion from fuelling a family for 30 years. The everyday incumbency of deciding, preparing and clearing.
With a mixture of annoyance and distraction, she answers, “What else? Cooking…”
I open my empty fridge and imagine hers — fully stocked with left-overs in porcelain bowls and enough raw vegetables to evade any sort of vitamin or mineral deficiencies. I see her sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee, contemplating a menu for lunch — no eggs for husband, no peas or potatoes for daughter, no spice for mother-in-law. I see her chopping onions vigorously, depositing them into a sizzling pan, sautéing and checking the time as she wipes away sweat beads trickling down the sides of her face with her nightie sleeve. I see her scuttle between kitchen and dining room with bowls of piping hot food, often eating nothing more than a simple sandwich.
I guess my husband will just have to make do with the chicken leg for now… Because I don’t want to be ground down like my mother by the world’s culinary checklist.
Sangeetha Bhaskaran is a part-time mommy, blogger and accountant and full-time dreamer. She is the author of the parenting site No Time to Moisturize.
Image credit: Large Order of Toast by JD Hancock.