There is no space to swim in the sambar

After I started living alone, I wanted to cook for three reasons.

1- Eating out everyday is expensive

2- I wanted to be better than my parents and prove to them I’m a better person in their absence

3- To dismantle cooking recipes and add what I want when I want however I want.

The third reason is a loophole to save me from the horrors of everyday grocery shopping. I was surprisingly good at balancing a diet that’s healthy and edible- sometimes even tasty. Every time I come to my parents’ home, I make it a point to raise my eyebrows, suck my cheek, lift my my buttocks and walk like the sexy Disney villains to judge how terribly they’ve kept their house. I entered their kitchen and saw how everything was everywhere. It was hygienic but untidy. In one of the slabs was a plate of pumpkin seeds my dad saved before making his sambar to cultivate them on our terrace. It was so close to the edge that I wanted to push them to the floor. I’m surprised our cats didn’t. There was bleaching powder packet next to the masala dabbas. There were 7 plastic juicers that no one uses. Sacks of bags shoved in every corner of the kitchen. And this was how the kitchen looked after it was freshly cleaned. I exhaled with disappointment and then found a dabba of five rupees boost packets. I took them to my room, emptied it into my mouth and the disappointment melted.

I woke up early in the morning relaxed thinking about the three meals I don’t have to work for. The music system in the kitchen was booming loud. Dad was in his lungi folded up to his knee. His strong bicep was flexing while peeling potato and ears were focused on counting whistles from the cooker. Kitchen work was moving too fast, it was compensating for the other dead dark rooms. I took the potatoes asked him if it were for frying. He said yes and I sat down on the floor and started cutting them in small squares. He grabbed the okras from the side and chopped them for sambar. I sang along the SPB songs and dad occasionally moved his shoulder and hips and danced. Dad didn’t stop working for a minute. By the time I finished cutting potatoes, his sambar was ready and he was moving onto making Rasam. Lunch and breakfast was ready in less than an hour

Dad’s first made up song lyrics were ‘sambaril mungi thappi oru kashnam vendakka kitti, nee maathram vannillalo ponnu thakkali’ (I swam deep in the sambar and searched, I found a piece of okra but you were never found my dear tomato). I always found it funny because there was barely any water to swim in his sambar. His okra and carrots were each atleast two inches long, dal was circular and visible and tomatoes can’t be missed, their huge chunks occupy half the liquid space.

He started cooking when I was in fourth grade and mom fell sick. I don’t remember mom’s cooking, it was too long ago. Every morning was a new adventure in the kitchen. Some days it was a tiny ones like tasting too much salt to too little. Most days it was life threatening like the two times our cooker exploded leaving sambar marks on the kitchen ceiling. Dad always joked about it but I wonder how much he was scared but had to laugh it out.

I had a double decker steel dabba. Lower half had sambar mixed with rice and upper part had vegetables. I called it sambar cake because it was so tightly packed and the rice was compressed into a single unit. Mothers of every other student decorated their lunch boxes. They brought variety dishes everyday. When I complained about my lunch to my dad he told me that I was so lucky to be able to cut cake everyday. He told me that the other students are jealous of my healthy cake. I never complained after. Dad was so creative in solving my problems and he always had a one line song to sing in the background.

I cook just for me and doing that everyday is a nightmare. I wonder how dad did that for all these years. He took me out on Sundays and bought fruits like all dads. But he also cooked, towel my hair dry, braided my hair, played hide and seek till I was 14, dragged me to workout every morning. I wonder if he ever stopped to realise how much he is working everyday. Is his brain ever quiet? Maybe when he broke into his song while waiting for his sambar to boil.