A very fond memory of food that I have carried with me over the years relates to smell. Summer vacation is on in full swing and I almost always get to sleep late. What wakes me up on most days is this incredible aroma that wafts in from the kitchen.
It’s not the boisterous, brawny odour of the chicken masala, or the wispy, steamy fragrance of the idli. It’s somewhere in between, is much more magical, has more layers to it, and hides more than it reveals. It floats through the air, invades your nasal senses lovingly, pokes teasing fingers at buttons somewhere deep inside you, triggers memories of previous wonderful meals you’ve had, and stirs up something that is so mellow and powerful at the same time that you have to get up and pay obeisance.
Today’s breakfast is the humble, yet glorious, dosa. I’ve always wondered how these two adjectives can so beautifully describe the same thing. Dosa is much like Gandhiji that way — judging it by the way it looks is a risk you choose to take at your own peril. To accompany the dosa is yet another humble, but glorious being — the coconut chutney. Amma is making coconut chutney and as she does the final tempering — the thadka — with coconut oil, curry leaves, a little urad dhal, three/four broken red chilies and mustard seeds, and the smell finds its way across the dining room and into my bedroom. The sautee aroma always makes me think of Amma as some sort of god. A god putting the soul into the poor hapless chutney lying lifeless, waiting for the thadka so it can redeem itself and be a worthy companion to the dosa.
She makes the thadka, and once she tempers the chutney it transcends into another creature altogether — it now has a soul. Amma looks at me standing by the kitchen door inhaling the smell. I’m like Amma in lots of ways, there being a number of things we share and like to do — sitting by the back door near the well with a glass of hot tea and vada during the rain, going for evening walks to the dilapidated bridge nearby to see the sunset talking about what book to read next, laughing out loud at slapstick cinematic scenes, cooking and feeding friends and family. This is another thing we both like — the heavenly smell of thadka in the mornings. She ruffles my hair, smiles and asks me to go brush my teeth while she begins to prepare dosas.
Our dining room was next to the kitchen. But these vacation morning dosas were never had there. I used to climb on to the kitchen slab — the humble name for what you’d call the countertop these days — fold my legs beneath me, and Amma would transfer the dosas from pan to plate. She would not talk much on these occasions — that was my job. She would just nod and listen, ask questions here and there, and the dosas would come pouring in. I realised much later, when I had my children, that she did this on purpose — those morning conversations warranted a listener and she fit that role to a ‘T’.
By the time I was finished, she would have got a daily report of what I had read recently, what I liked about it, and what I intended to do that day — all interspersed with strong opinions of what I felt about everything under the sun. Looking back, I get now that most of these opinions were at best just my naïvete and at worst, just unadulterated pieces of stupidity — but she never once pointed that out. She would patiently listen to all my outpourings — her strongest opinion if I was getting too judgmental about something being, “The world might just look different from the other side. Think about it, there could be another point of view, too. Do you want another dosa?”
I loved those morning conversations and never realised how big a part they played in making me the person I am today. As a raw, idealistic young man, the world was either black or white for me. Amma made me see the grey tones. She subtly made me understand that there are no absolute rights or wrongs. She opened my eyes to the need to constantly evolve and to the power of listening — among many, many other things. The dosa and the chutney were mute, but irreplaceable, observers to a learning of immense stature.
Today that kitchen stands empty. Amma is no more, there is no smell of thadka to wake me up, there are no dosas. But the memory stays — as fresh as the day it was first made.
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