Handover

Twelve years since these anguished posts [1] [2] [3].
 
Twelve years since my mother passed. A full solar cycle comes to a close in a few months. It seems just like the other day, and yet it feels like a lifetime or two have passed.

I think I've said before that my mother dealt with the news of imminent death with a rare fortitude and pragmatism. She called for the ‘bank bag’, signed a few blank cheques, made sure the papers were in good order. She roughly planned the menu for the 13th day death rites. She said her goodbyes with love, and kindness almost – she left behind a legion of bereaved people, each of whom had experienced her friendship in their own unique way.

As she lay very fatigued from the aggressive cancer, I remember bringing her a dozen dabbas from the kitchen, ascertaining the precise nature of the myriad unlabelled powders on the shelves. “That is vangi bhaath powder, that is Nagamani aunty’s recipe for curries… that pickle mix is old, throw it away…” A handing over of the kitchen in a manner of speaking.

And I took down a few recipes and ratios the way she made them – the staple idli and dosa, a couple of powders. “For adai,” she told my sister, “just leave it to your father. Only, he tends to make the batter a little too thick, so just add a little water when you make them.” She was so right – my father’s adai hittu ranks among the best in the world.

To mark that sharply-etched time, I have Johana West’s (bitter)sweet haiku.

old family recipe
hoping our hands
are the same size

From a time when recipes weren’t written in cup measures but were an intuitive affair involving a pinch of this, a dollop of that and as my mother said back then, indicating less than a quarter of her hand, ‘ondu ishtu uppu’ (this much salt).