The one memory that hadn’t escaped my mind was that of Ashtami. Of being 16, innocent, and waiting all year for this day, for Kolkata all lit up and Ma’s special once-in-a-year Ashtami bhog of the most decadent Bengali food to be served to the goddess. Khichuri, beguni, torkari - the Bengali holy trinity and payesh sweeter than honey; most of our childhood is not stored in photos but in certain foods, lights of day, smells, and textures of cabinets.

The kitchen counter had never felt so empty before, dawn cascading upon its’ pale walls. Here, within this dimly lit room, the embers of my mother's culinary artistry still smolder. As I stand before it, I can feel the echoes of her existence resonating in the faded paint, the worn-out cabinets, and the tarnished brassware. I watch as the flickering flame of the brass diya dances on the steel utensils, casting elongated shadows on the walls. It is Ashtami again. In the city lit up by the joyous onset of Durga Ma’s coming, I sit here, bereft of my own mother but sheltered by the incandescent pastiche of colorful lights adorned by our gully. Today, on one of my favorite days of the year, I try my hardest not to think of you, Ma.

The air is pregnant with devotion, mingled with the aroma of incense and the promise of bhog, the sacred offering of food - a responsibility that has fallen upon my shoulders as the next-in-line woman of the house after Ma's passing. I turn to the stove overlooking our gully through the grills of the window; it is still quiet outside. I haven't seen this view in a while, an endless happening lane through the iron grills of a confined space. The complicated relationship we share within the confines of our childhood home and memory. I can't help but think that this was Ma's view for years. She spent her time cooking in the kitchen, overlooking the stove just as much as she looked over us in the hall. My brother and I were outside, oblivious to everything that went on in this space right next to us. A space that I'd associated all my life with the dance of spices, the sizzle of mustard seeds, the clattering of pots, and the way three meals magically appeared from here every day. Without a doubt, without question, without ever having to ask.

My brother and I went on to live our own lives - in California and in Bangalore, and hadn't looked back at what used to be our home since. What we reminisced the most about hadn't been our childhood room or evenings spent playing gully cricket with friends in the building, but Ma's food: Ma's boring, home-cooked meals that we'd always taken for granted, had somehow managed to transcend the thrill of living alone, of early adulthood, and the sweet intoxicating sip of newfound independence - its spell broken every other day by bland hostel food, homesickness, and the weight that comes from the responsibility of not starving yourself when tired as an adult.

Baba used to go to work every day around this time. And come back late at night, if he did come back at all, but Ma used to wait for him anyway. After putting us to sleep, she'd starve herself and willingly watch the hot meal she'd made get cold while waiting for her husband. I'd often asked her why, and she'd always smiled and said, 'Because that's what a good wife does.' The whole family had lives outside of the home, but for Ma, her whole life had revolved around this small room that was always taken for granted in hushed whispers. clanged utensils, and of water dripping down the floor because of a leak that hadn't been fixed in years despite her frequent complaints.

Most of my memories of Ma are of her in the kitchen, but I never wondered if Ma liked being in the kitchen. This space I stand in has witnessed the intricate choreography of a woman's life within its walls.

But the sun's ascent reminds me I'm running out of time. I take out the kadhai on the far end of the top cabinet - wondering how my 5 ft. tall mother ever reached there by herself in this small space when I barely could. As my hand searches for the kadhai, I stumble upon other items hidden away, and there it is – her old recipe book. Its pages, bearing the yellowed patina of age, worn out but fat - as if pressed between its pages are Ma’s culinary lineage and all her stories and secrets that were once whispered, even without words, in this corner of the house. I wonder why she ever needed one as if she wouldn’t have known all her ingredients and measurements by heart. For 35 years, she'd been cooking in this space, cradled by its walls while she held our household together. And it was all thanks to Nani's timeless wisdom, something that her mom had taught her - passed down through generations of women, that the key to a man's heart is through his stomach, so if you must know anything as a woman, you must know how to cook, and cook well. A fact that Baba kept like a secret, but Ma kept like an oath.

In fact, when their arranged marriage was still in the talks, and the ‘ladke wale’ had come to visit Nani’s house, Baba took just one sip of Ma’s tea before he said yes to the alliance or even saw her through the ghunghat that veiled her face, and her innocence. Let alone talk to her.

As I wait for the ghee to get hot in the kadhai, I flip through the pages of this book to find Ma’s khichuri recipe, to get it just right, in an attempt to relive her cooking again - as if through her handwritten notes I can somehow conjure up her love in spirit. I read the instructions, all in meticulous detail, guided by the soul-affirming confidence of youthful naivety and optimism.
The rice and lentils are rinsed and set aside, the fragrant spices are arranged in the order she prescribed, and the vegetables wait patiently on the cutting board.

The sizzle of mustard seeds in hot ghee fills the kitchen, and the familiar aroma wraps around me like a warm embrace. I can almost hear Ma's gentle voice guiding me, her laughter dancing in the air. But as I proceed, I realize the intricate dance of flavors, the exact timing of each addition, and the subtle adjustments required to create the perfect balance. My initial confidence gradually wanes as I encounter my first challenge: the rice and lentils are sticking to the bottom of the pan. Panic flits through my chest as I try to remember Ma's secret technique for preventing this. Was it the way she washed them or the precise amount of oil she used? The recipe book is merely a skeleton without the soul of the dish. I barely manage to salvage what’s in the kadhai, the liminality of memory and food.

The kitchen, once a sanctuary, now feels like a battlefield. Maybe cooking was a language in itself that couldn't be learned without understanding the nuances, the unspoken wisdom, and the intangible touch that Ma brought to her culinary creations. Pressed between the pages of this book, I find the recipe for payesh, bookmarked by dried-up rose petals, with yellowed pages dog-eared - Kishore Kumar's lyrics scribbled randomly between recipes. Perhaps the kitchen had always been her haven, where no one would ever bother her- not her two annoying children, not her in-laws who’d only ever critique the food after it’s been served but never step in the kitchen to help, not the shadow of violence that often accompanied Baba’s homecoming from ‘parties’ late at night.

A whole life and so much love and pain are trapped between the pages of what was thought to be culinary tradition, so much passion, domesticated into nothingness and confinement. She'd often hum Kishore Kumar's melodies but never sung them outside the kitchen. When she did, she sometimes got the lyrics wrong, resorting to making up her own, and Baba and I would often share a laugh at its expense. It makes me think of Bonnie Burstow's quote, "Often, father and daughter look down on the mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are and cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate."

The early morning October air weighs down on me with an eerie silence.

My attempts at recreating Ma's khichuri continue, with each step in the process unraveling another layer of the enigma that was her life within these very walls. As I stir the khichuri, I wonder how it was for her every single day. A kaleidoscope of emotions envelops me – empathy, frustration, and a hint of anger – and erupts into nothingness. The khichuri is but a reflection of the tangled threads of her existence, interwoven with the daily grind of domestic chores and the relentless pursuit of domesticated perfection.

Ma's life was not just a mosaic of recipes and spices; it was a complex web of roles, expectations, and limitations. The kitchen, which I had once regarded as her kingdom, now feels like a cage, where her dreams and aspirations were buried beneath the weight of societal norms.

My mind races with questions that I can no longer ask her. Did she ever wish for something more, something beyond the confines of this kitchen? Did she find joy in her culinary creations, or did it become an unrelenting duty? Was her laughter a genuine expression of happiness, or was it a facade to conceal her internal conflict? Did she know that one day I’d be standing in her place asking these questions, plucking on stove knobs; stove knobs that are not answers?
As I stand in her place, attempting to imitate her, to perfect the bhog, I am filled with nothing but silence. Domesticated culinary artistry, all to revere the deity who stood for womanhood, empowerment, the liberation of the oppressed, and entailed the empowerment of creation.

As the khichuri simmers on the stove, the air is thick with anticipation, much like the atmosphere on Ashtami mornings of the past. I've meticulously followed Ma's recipe, added the precise amount of spices (and what she called her ‘secret ingredient’: love), and yet, the aroma that fills the kitchen lacks the same enchantment. When I finally take a bite, hoping to relive the same moment when Ma would make me taste the bhog first before offering it to the goddess or herself, just to see if it’s alright - it doesn't transport me back to my mother's kitchen.

All I am now is a stranger in this sacred, timeless space of my own home.

The khichuri is good, but it's not the same. It is lacking what made it familiar, what made Ma’s cooking homely, and all our childhood memories so indelibly sweet. What had changed? Was it my lack of devotion? Or perhaps my circumstances that were different from hers, or the years of being confined to the kitchen that added that extra ingredient of a mother’s tinged expertise to cooking? Was it love? Or was it the outpouring of what could never be translated into words to be said to her own family?


The kitchen, with its enduring aroma, still stands as a monument to the unspoken sacrifices and resilience of generations of women. It's a place where love, duty, and dreams are intertwined, where traditions are passed down through the ages. The room is filled with the echoes of Ma's laughter, her cries, the rhythm of her footsteps, and the wisdom she gained from this very space.
I sit down to eat the khichuri, trying to savor each bite, but it's a bittersweet taste. From the window above the stove, I can hear the gully wake up for today’s festivities as an old Kishore Kumar melody plays on the speaker in the distance.

No khichuri would ever taste as sweet as hers.




Glossary
Ashtami: the eighth day of the Hindu lunar calendar, celebrated with great zeal in Bengal.

Bhog: sacred food offering to deities

Khichuri, beguni, torkari, payesh: names of Bengali dishes that are prepared for Durga puja and served as bhog.
*Bengali khichuri is a sweeter rendition of Khichdi.

Gully: narrow lane
Baba: Bengali for father/dad
Kadhai: a utensil (cauldron)
Ladke wale: bridegroom’s side of the family