" Come in . Come in ,"
The voice was welcoming . The eyes were not . The lips lied , probably. Clad in a nighty , with a towel thrown around the shoulder , to hide bra less boobs . This is the classic attire of every bengali housewife across the state .
Dishevelled hair. But a scrubbed face . Early morning bath . Puja room to the right let in wafts of burning incense and camphor and ghee . Right earnest puja room . Millions of gods and goddesses residing on millions of miniature brass thrones . swathed in gold lace bordered red plastic netting called chunaris . Their barely visible fraction of faces \ foreheads were smeared with greasy vermillion , every morning . I was asked to bow to this confused shrine of non visible , enthroned deities .
This was more of a UP /Bihar thing . Bengali housewives are not so fanatically religious . For them , oiling , washing the hair and pouring a lota ful of ganges water on the resident Tulasi plant is more than enough . This one exercise leads to two things . One , they roam around with their hairs untied, long , dark , oily , all the day long . Futilely trying to dry it in the humid bengal air . Other , it gives them that faintly unctuous holier-than-thou air .
So , then , back to my hostess . There is smell of stuffed karelas , frying in a battered saucepan , which looks as if it has been used as a weapon of serious nature , in recent past . The oil is spitting , crackling and hissing . On the other side is the provocative aroma of rice boiling , which sends salivary glands into overdrive in half of the world . The eastern half I guess.
She asks me what tea Ill have .
"Black "
" Why black ? I make good tea , with cardamoms and ginger . Boiled in milk no less. Mark you , milk from our grass fed , backyard buffalo . Whenever I go home , my father in law , used to ask for tea made by only me . No one else . He passed away , last December . He was soo fond of me . Always wanted food cooked by me ."
Reminiscing , her eyes turn inwards and she is transported to a different place and time . Suddenly , she is brought to earth by a shriek , "Bichchoo "!! The maid has halted her act of smudging the floors with a moist muddy piece of cloth, and is frozen . One hand clutching her pleats at the groin . The other slapping her forehead .
My hostess returns with a broom , pronto. "Where ? where ? "
"Here".
She points to a largish spider on the floor . I say "Spider " .
My hostess is confused , Watching one face then the other . The maid doesn't accept defeat so easily .
"See, this is the sting , these are the pincers which it will use to grab and latch on ." The maid is basically pointing out its various legs . There is one thing I do in these situations . I quickly agree . It saves me the effort of trying to make idiotic people see sense . It also shuts them up . Aah , blissful silence . Silence is precious , and should be bought at any price .
The spider is killed and swept away . My hostess resumes her murder of the aforementioned silence .
"So you will have tea ? "
" No ? "
"Black ?" I nod noiselessly ,
"Sugar ? No ? . I cant understand how people live without milk . " By people , she meant me , standing next to her hissing pans , but there was nothing I could do about .
"My son , when he was here , was so fond of milk . Always had a glass of bournvita before his exams . And nothing else . Only milk ." She smiled wistfully .
Then quickly strained my tea and gave it to me . Before she would add lots of milk and sugar to it . She sent out two cups for the men sitting and smoking in the parking lot . Both were severely diabetic . No protest came back . Probably , they too , valued silence .
Cigarette smoke was forbidden in Jhumpa's kitchen . There could be only one smoke . The smoke from the agarbattis and the kitchen oil smoke .
"So , when I got married and I came , these people , my in laws, knew only fish curry and rice . I brought these exotic dishes to this family . My brother buys one kilo of karela when I go home and wants me to make this dish and keep it in the fridge . He takes them for work . One karela with four rotis . That is his lunch ."
I later learnt from my sister , that both these facts were untrue . Jhumpa , like most of us , learnt cooking at the hands of her very bengali mother in law . It was probably , she who taught her this dish too . The brother has many ailments , including cardiac , liver malfunctions . severely diabetic. Eats boiled unseasoned stuff. Works from home . So , no tiffin , no fried karelas .
"My father in law died holding my hands " That sounded too dramatic to be true .
She saw the look on my face and said , "No , I mean it ."
"He implored me never to sell his house . The house that he had built with all his savings of the life time .
The very day he died , he (the husband , he -who -must-not -be-named ) and his sister sat down to discuss the going rates , and formalities of selling the house . I said no . Nothing doing . I was not letting an old man's soul haunt me , or taunt me . My sister in law hates me to this day because I wouldn't let the house be sold . She has unfollowed my daughter on instagram and unfriended me on the face book . She no longer calls us and asks me about my son .
Did I tell you about my son ? This rascal did all the coaching he could for his two final years of high school and never appeared for NEET. He says he doesn't want to. He just slept off on the day of his exam . I started praying all the gods and goddesses , finally he agreed to do graduation in Biotechnology at SRM. Now he wants to go abroad .
You know why I didn't let my husband sell our ancestral property . Because it is an asset . The day it is sold , my son will blow all that money on his crazy schemes and we will be left with nothing .
Exactly , zero zilch . "
Then she proceeded to pack away large quantities of stuffed karela, fish curry, pickles for my sister's family.
Rain had stopped . So the construction workers offloaded a wheelbarrow full of mixed concrete on the dirt floor .
I felt heavy . Like the dirt road with oozing wet concrete on top.
