It felt like forever and a hundred different tubes and overland trains for me to reach Pakshi’s town. The station was a dusty, crumbling place through which a cold gale whipped through, making my hour long wait for Pakshi to fetch me rather unpleasant. The cellphone issue didn’t help as there seemed to be no-one at home when I called form the station to say I had arrived. It turned out we’d miscommunicated about my ETA, but we were like two little girls in our joy in seeing each other again, that it didn’t matter at all. We walked in the bristling winter wind to her house which was a large brick affair amidst a row of unkempt plastered ones, though not as large as I had imagined with all those nine other people living in it! Stepping into the thick warmth of the house, I was greeted at the door by the mother-in-law who looked exactly as I had imagined: roundly overweight, long greasy grey hair tied up in a lazy chignon and eyes that looked both kind and cold. The lounge was obviously decked out for the occasion, the tables heavily laden with spiced almonds, cashews and a variety of biscuits. Even a pot of tea steamed in the middle of a tray of immaculately floral tea-cups. Pakshi’s body language screamed awkwardness and we both found it hard to talk to each other as we usually did. The mother-in-law was not the chatty type and I was grateful for my verbal diahrrea, managing to chat a storm and thereby convince the mother-in-law I was good, happy and wholesome company for her daughter-in-law. The sisters arrived next in a whirl of designer clothes and loose, long black hair. My previously attained knowledge of them didn’t help to predispose me to them too kindly and I struggled to not see them as my friend’s piggish tormenters! Reason conquered in the end, and they were pleasant, well-educated women who it seemed would never marry, and if they did, it would be for love. I couldn’t begin to imagine them living as Pakshi did. It is still hard for me to understand the paradoxical way in which Pakshi’s mother-in-law treated Pakshi versus her own daughters. Archaic and traditional compared to modernly Western.
When Pakshi could see I had the situation under control, she disappeared briefly, only to return with a silver tray of the biggest samoosas I have ever laid eyes on, lined with oil-spotted paper doilies. My eyes must have either bulged or watered because Pakshi laughed and assured me she had used the most mild of chillis in her samoosa filling. Relieved, I popped one onto a plate and sunk my teeth deep into the soft, oily pastry expecting a gently spiced mince to fill my mouth. Instead, I felt my mouth actually ignite – and then my tongue became a red-hot, burning coal which seemed to burn brighter and harder with each passing second. And this time, I KNOW my eyes bulged AND watered, because everyone in the room had a big fat guffaw and began hurriedly pouring me more tea and showering me with paper towels for my watering eyes. (What I really wanted to use the napkins for was to get rid of the hellish morsel in my mouth!) Needless to say, I didn’t suffer a single bout of sinusitis for at least a year after that! Having finished my giant samoosa, Pakshi begged me to please have another one – and I could only rub my tummy in response to say: no thank, my friend, but I am full to bursting! As an alternative, she wrapped two more up for me in tinfoil for my long journey home (though I could hardly imagine attempting this voluntarily again!) With the entertainment now over for the day (i.e. watch the uninitiated South African try to eat our food as politely as possible) the sisters and mother left us to ourselves in the lounge, both relieved to finally be able to talk as we usually did. What I didn’t expect was for Pakshi to announce, while we cleared the lounge of the leftover spiced nuts and empty tea cups, was that it was now time for lunch! Besides the fact that I was already full from that Samoosa (it was so big it deserves a capital S!), I couldn’t bear the thought of having to force more chilli down my poor, virgin gullet still searing and blistering from what felt like 3rd degree burns! My first thought was: escape! I must go NOW! I hoped my phone would ring from someone urgently needing me back home – or that I could suddenly remember a once-forgotten dentist’s appointment: ANYTHING! But as my reason kicked in, I knew I had to stay for this lunch – but I would have to tell Pakshi how burny her food was to me. While she showed me the five vegetable dishes she had so meticulously prepared, and the three meat dishes, I plucked up the courage to explain my dilemma. She laughed till the tears rolled down her cheeks, looking much like I did in the middle of munching my Samoosa – consoling me with the fact that she would place big bowls of dessicated coconut and cool, white yoghurt on the table for me. She let me help her carry the bowls and trays through to the dining room, which was dark and strangely colonial in style with it’s almost black, super-glossy mahogany table and pink damask wallpaper. And while the food stayed warm in the server (she had set the table before I’d arrived) she showed me how to prepare the chapattis and naans. Nothing had been bought from Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s but had been hand-prepared that morning (and knowing Pakshi, probably before sunrise!) I watched in awe as she flung and bounced the chapattis over the naked blue gas flame on the cooker – amazed at the grace that years of practice had endowed her movements with. Imagining myself attempting the same manoeuvre brought up images of sleeves catching alight, scorched chapattis and screeching smoke-detectors, leaving me quite happy with giving my Tesco chapattis a cowardly, unauthentic spin the microwave instead!
A round bamboo lidded container swallowed the warm, steaming chapattis which I carried behind Pakshi to the diningroom. As she dished up each portion for me on a rather large white plate, the room filled with layer upon layer of spicy fragrances – I could pick out cinnamon here, clove there… and here a lavish dash of garlic… Despite myself, I salivated hungrily and couldn’t wait for Pakshi to finish dishing her plate up so we could tuck into this incredible feast. Surprisingly (though I think the Samoosa had either anaesthetised my tongue or permanently killed off every one of my tastebuds) the food wasn’t nearly as hot as I predicted it would be. Instead, the bouquet of spices I’d smelled before eating, was realised in my mouth as deeply scented and exquisitely flavoured sensations, each dish beautifully different from the next. I was so enthralled and intoxicated by the delicate intensity and versatile complexities that poor Pakshi suffered through a veritable inquisition of questions and more questions. I’d never understood Indian cooking before and now I felt like the sun was inexplicably rising in the middle of the day! At last I understood: I had finally attained gastronomical nirvana: there was more to food than the Italian food I’d been fascinated with since a young girl. My poor mom had to suffer rolling eyes and the whinging of three daughters whenever she cooked a curry – and like Pakshi, kindly producing bowls of chopped banana and coconut to ease the apparent burn (though twenty years later, I realise it was also to stop the high-pitched whine of three impudent daughters!)
With lunch finished and a new passion in me ignited, we tidied up the dining room, Navot wiping down the table leaving the room spotlessly immaculate. Back in the kitchen, the dirty dishes piled next to the sink, Pakshi submitted once again to my renewed interrogation of her cooking methods and ingredients. While a pot of water was set to boil on the stove for chai tea, Pakshi began an extensive explanation of her particular style of Indian cooking. Each region in India has its very own method and style of cooking – from techniques to actual ingredients. The problem in our Western Indian restaurants is that they generalise to form a menu of Indian food which is presumed to be more palatable for the Westerner. Probably the most efficient and exciting way to truly discover the delights of authentic Indian cuisine is to invest in a couple of very good Indian recipe books which will teach you everything about, for example, why the spices, in order to release their flavour and fragrance, must be warmed up in the oil at a specific point in the cooking process as opposed to just randomly throwing them in at some point when one remembers! Opening up the monstrosity of a fridge (for nine people, an ordinary freezer won’t do) Pakshi began pointing out how she organised her fridge and deepfreze, and then hauled out two huge round aluminium trays, each filled with what looked like a kind of paste cut up into blocks and covered in a tight skin of clingfilm. She explained how every two weeks, she’d stock up on fresh garlic and green chillies – usually about a Tesco packet full each – and then haul this home to prepare for the next two weeks’ worth of cooking. Every single night sees me carefully select two lobes of garlic, carefully peeling the papery envelope from the flesh I’ll crush into whatever it is I am making that night. Yes, it is a bit of a mission to do that peeling and crushing every night but so worth it when one compares it with the synthetic flavour of garlic flakes, or the stale onioniness of those tubs of yellowing pre-crushed garlic. Now, can you imagine peeling not just two little cloves but head after head of garlic until you had enough to crush so it would fill a deep aluminium tray with it? And now that you’re finished with the garlic, you have the fresh, green chillies to prepare (though the exact process of that remains a mystery to me. I think Pakshi decided, after my close encounter with her samoosas, that I wouldn’t ever need, or want to know the fine art of preparing chilli!)
As she showed me around her immaculate and fascinatingly organised kitchen, I asked her why she didn’t consider becoming a cooking teacher. She blushed her modest little blush and tried to change the subject, but I persisted: “You really are quite phenomenal – and I just know that with your personality, talent and knowledge of Indian cooking, you would be an instant success!” But she just mumbled something about not being allowed to, even though her eyes, sparkling, were telling me otherwise. I decided not to push her but hoped she’d at least consider it. It would get her out the house, give her some sort of independence and most importantly, make her some friends. Of course, that was only my personal point of view and it was impossible for me to understand her circumstances completely and the subject was never raised again.
It was time for tea and almost time for me to head back to West Berkshire, which felt like an entire universe away from this dark, bizarrely colonial but still very Indian house, its walls infused with years of oily spiciness and regret. Next to the stove, against the wall, was a tall wooden chest of square draws which looked as if it was very old and had endured a rough sea journey from India to England in a trunk lined with saris and spices. With a pot of water bubbling furiously on the stove, Pakshi plopped in two Earl Grey tea bags which were sucked under the boiling surface and then thrown back onto its furious surface again in a vicious whirlpool. While the tea got tumbled around and around, Pakshi opened various unlabelled drawers, bringing out small handfuls of the particular ‘chai’ spices. Laying each type of spice down on the wooden chopping board next to the stove, she crushed them with a long, pale wooden rolling pin, releasing the fragrance trapped in the oils of the black peppercorns, green cardamom, nutmeg, ginger and sweet cinnamon. Carefully tipping them into the boiling pot, she readied the teapot and some milk in a jug while the spices saturated the brew with their magic!
The tea was like nothing I had ever tasted! It was as if I was transported to another place and time which whispered to me of the exotic and the precious… My mouth tingled as if from the most passionate, illicit kiss and each sip was like another kiss. In India, chai is drunk milky and quite sweet – in bitter contrast to the darkened, sugarless brew of English teapots. What does this say about cultures? I don’t really know, but perhaps it has something to do with hedonism and a lust for beauty, as opposed to polite austerity. All I know is that I drink chai tea whenever I can - even becoming a bit of a ritual for me when I write. It is as if it has the power to unlock my memory and ignite my imagination! (But please don’t be tempted by the Westernised version of chai tea – it is weakened by dilution into something which would embarrass an Indian!)
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