by Rajlakshmi Pillai
[box] Rajlakshmi has a rather odd relationship with food and cooking. She doesn’t love cooking, but she grew from hating it to managing to cook up something and even experimenting thanks to Google and YouTube once in a while. Read on for the story of the woman who used to frown whenever she thought of food![/box]
Food – the word conjures up so many images! When I think of food today, what I remember is the process that goes into making what it is – cooking. I was never a foodie and perhaps that is why my earliest memories of food are associated with verbs such as ‘frown’, ‘disappoint’ and ‘dislike’. It must have had something to do with the ‘fat girl’ tag attached to me while in school. This is a tag that I am still fighting against – well, that is another story.
Once I realised that I was fat or rather that others considered me fat, I started fearing food, adding to my mother’s woes. I remember how she would plead with me to drink a glass of milk. I would protest, ‘No! That will make me fat.’ This antagonism with food continued through tough teenage years to college days. And the resentment did not stop with just food but extended to my mother. Poor thing! Since as a family we didn’t eat out too often, food, to me, meant what my mother prepared. So, if I had a problem with what was on the table, then it graduated to a squabble with my mother. Either I was angry that her fish curry was too spicy or I disliked the way the beans were cooked. My mother, of course, did get angry at my outbursts but would cool down and have tears in her eyes if I refused to eat. Her pleading made me more proud and I think that added to my stubbornness, both with regard to food and my mother. This is perhaps the reason why I disliked entering the kitchen and is definitely the reason I never learnt to cook… well… at least till I got married.
Marriage for an Indian girl comes with many demands, the main one being whether she knows how to cook. My husband knew I could not cook 
and his mother too came to know about it eventually. Few mothers-in-law can be at peace with a daughter-in-law who cannot cook. Mine wasn’t. Though she never showed any obvious bitterness, I still get to hear comments on my lack of expertise in cooking.
Once my marital life started, there was no escape from cooking. Tea was the first thing I learnt to prepare which slowly grew to a proper meal. Having a patient and calm husband helped in my trials and tribulations in cooking. He would never say anything even if the meal was half cooked, burnt or bland (though I love him for this demeanour, I should say that it has not helped me in bettering my cooking skills!). For all my resentment against my mother’s cooking, when I sit helplessly today surrounded by burnt vegetables, overcooked rice and tasteless sambhar, I long for her delicious food that I once neglected with disdain. How I wish I could go back and taste what amma prepared! I am sure I will say a ‘thank you’ for every morsel of food that would go into my mouth.
Today, even after eight years of ‘kitchen experiments’, I am still a novice when it comes to preparing a good sumptuous meal. But yes, I have improved… well, a bit. I am no longer hesitant or afraid to try recipes that I keep collecting from magazines, ‘Google uncle’ and even my colleagues. It is another matter that only a few lucky recipes get a practical form on my kitchen table, so much so that my colleagues’ immediate reaction to my query on any recipe is ‘so adding to your collection, ha?’
Though I may not be that attached to cooking, I am a huge fan of cooking videos on YouTube. I like the way simple ‘raw materials’ just turn into the most delicious dish that not only satiates your hunger but even your taste buds. I have come to realise that cooking needn’t be an art or ‘rocket science’ as the celebrity cook on TV would say, but can be developed with patience and passion. I have zero patience and my passion lies in other things. So I guess I will never be a good cook but then I am happy with my ‘average’ tag. My husband doesn’t complain; as he puts it so lovingly, ‘You are at least preparing something and that is enough for me.’ As for my mother, she is still to accept what I cook but nevertheless, I am happy that she knows that I am trying hard!
Stuck in a ‘9-5’ job, Rajlakshmi Pillai writes and reads whatever she can to satiate her creative hunger.
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Awesome! Loved reading it 🙂