Cold War
Photo: Karan Madhok
Short story: ‘Families didn’t merely eat; they communed with their past. Meals were tapestries woven from memory, where each ingredient carried the weight of ancestors, where every bite was a step into history.’
General Daadi drifted through a memory of kitchens long gone. The air was thick with the scent of mustard oil and the slow, deliberate rituals of cooking. With her hair as old as the 70s-something, she entered the hallowed corridors, for it was a time when food was more than sustenance; it was a conversation, a whisper passed from one generation to the next, in the language of spices, textures, and the hum of earthen stoves. If one sat long enough outside the kitchen, her cooking had a rhythm, an archaic pulse that beat alongside a river’s unhurried flow. She stirred up tales of how the women gathered in courtyards, peeling vegetables as they sat on low stools, talking of seasons and families while grinding fresh mustard seeds into pungent pastes.
The art of a Bengali meal was in its simplicity, and yet it carries the weight of centuries. Each dish was woven into the fabric of the land—fish from the Ganges, rice from the paddy fields, spices carried on ships from distant shores. It was an ecosystem of flavours that whispered of salt-laden air, humid afternoons, and the endless expanse of monsoon skies. She was of an age when even the humblest meals were acts of devotion. The sweet earthiness of shukto, a bitter stew of vegetables and spices, tempered with a touch of sugar and milk, the quiet comfort of dal with a hint of ghee, and the soulful machher jhol—a fish curry that tasted of rivers, rain, and home. These were dishes that echoed the soil, the water, and the life that pulsed beneath every blade of rice.
But more than the recipes themselves, it was the way her food brought people together. In early Bengali households, food was a slow, communal affair. Families didn’t merely eat; they communed with their past. Grandmothers, with wrinkled hands and eyes that had seen lifetimes, passed down the secrets of fermenting rice, the perfect balance of sweet and bitter on the plate, the importance of patience. Meals were tapestries woven from memory, where each ingredient carried the weight of ancestors, where every bite was a step into history.
Now, as she hovered in the quiet, unseen, she lamented the passing of that time with the paanch phoron, a medley of five spices blended in careful portions. This kitchen was quieter now, the pace of life faster. The connection between food and land had frayed, replaced by convenience and haste. But in the corners of old homes, where the walls remembered the scent of turmeric and radhuni, the spirit of an archaic food culture still lingered in her head, waiting for someone to remember how to listen.
This was General Daadi—who woke up every morning at five to spread out her cooking over multiple courses. Many in her country had indeed overcome famines and hunger of centuries past, but Daadi’s food insecurity, blended with the need to exhibit craft in cooking, continued to be a part of the Haldar household.
Her cooking had a rhythm, an archaic pulse that beat alongside a river’s unhurried flow. She stirred up tales of how the women gathered in courtyards, peeling vegetables as they sat on low stools, talking of seasons and families while grinding fresh mustard seeds into pungent pastes.
Staples were always stored in bulk, and planning was done for the same a month in advance, sometimes two. Seargent Mummy walked around with a list and an air of dismissiveness as she was forced to overlook the matters of the kitchen meticulously. Arranging for a separate supply of dal that went into making a year-long supply of bori bhaaja, which lasted for only six-odd months, often sent her to the throes of blood-curdling rage. It didn’t matter who ate or who didn’t, but the pots always stayed on the fire pit created by the demi-gods of cooking.
Sometimes, the neighbours dropped by for a session of adda, which overlapped with meal times. General Daadi cooked a fresh pot of Gobindo bhog, a rice that was meant for the gods. Walking around in a plain, starched, blue-bordered, sparsely tapestried jamdani saree almost as old as she was a common sight in the household.
The Bengali adda in the Haldar household was a world of its own, a timeless space where thoughts, arguments, and dreams collided. It began casually, over tea in a clay cup or a plate of mishti, but soon it spiralled into something far more significant: an unstructured symphony of voices. Topics flowed seamlessly from politics to poetry, from the latest cricket match to Tagore’s verses, or how Tuki’s new daughter-in-law who wore jeans two months into marriage, with everyone present as an expert in their own right. In this adda, hierarchy melted away. It didn’t matter if you were a professor, a student, a neighbour, or a stranger who just wandered in: everyone had a place. There was comfort in the battles that were waged, a shared understanding that nothing needed to be resolved, that the joy was in the debate itself. It was where friendships were forged, rebellions whispered, and stories spun late into the evening when the city outside faded, and only the warmth of conversation remained.
My brother and I, basically civilians, never knew what hunger meant. From what we had heard, it was what my ancestors had experienced once, and it wasn’t something that was ever discussed. We adored General Daadi’s cooking, for it meant home, and the scent of Jhorna Ghee on bhaat coupled with a side of crispy posto bori stirred up an appetite that could fail our local kushti fellow. However, we had admittedly shown a consistent proclivity towards having dosas and idlis. We had our first bites of the soulful idli and the tangy tamarindy dal, with small leaves and drumsticks floating in the bowl two neighbourhoods away with the Iyer family. It felt like the third-eye opening.
We think this was when the war began.
Sergeant Mummy was confided in, and the kitchen store soon saw small glass jars filling in the empty spaces between our monthly supplies. The glass jars, no taller than five inches, carried orange powders in various shades but promised a taste just like the Iyers’. General Daadi didn’t enter the store very frequently because that was where the sergeants and civilians gathered. The outer kitchen was General’s fort—and the times were a-changin’.
Few full moons later, our kitchen sink slowly saw the beginning of battles of long sighs, washing, and re-washing of the grinding stones and copper plates. Copper never principally worked well with lemon or tamarind, and hence, the corrosion enraged the General. Her pace in the kitchen got slower as she watched the Sergeant cook away pleasing idlis and dosas in a matter of minutes before meals. It wasn’t elaborate but pleased our taste buds but little did we know this was to be the Sergeant’s nemesis soon. She taught us to relish this acquired taste by mixing a heap of gunpowder with warm ghee with our rice for a taste that made us extremely happy. Sergeant Mummy was a bookkeeper at the local tax collector’s office, and it took 30 minutes of one-way travel to get to work. So, the Iyer-themed cooking was something that she aced.
It was quick. A few lentils and a little rice had to be soaked, ground and fermented the night before for a quick meal the next morning. The orange-dal she prepared lasted for two days at a stretch, so we were happy to know that the joy of eating idlis would also come the next day.
Eventually, the fumes from the hearth caused an uproar that none of us expected to see. Every ingredient, each spice, revolted in the storeroom, like a soldier in their silent skirmish over culinary control. General Daadi, with her practiced hands, brought the small glass jars out in the open. The maach-bhaat cavalry was revolting with a stare that could congeal the blood in your veins. She swept her hand, almost invoking a potent ritual and thundered, “Bou Maa, this is not what we have. This is not our taste. You cannot feed them ferments daily. The kitchen must be what it is known for.”
Civilians took shelter behind the water hand-pump, and the two servants, Joshodha and Mira, scurried into the kitchen. The General had spoken, and the tremors of this war were to be felt by the next few generations.
“The idlis are not blessed with turmeric,” Daadi said, “I won’t allow convenience to be replaced with this smartness of yours.”
Sergeant Mummy was stunned to see this confrontation. She had only heard of the General’s temper after marrying into the Haldar household, but this was the first time in 12 years she was witnessing it raw. The Radcliffe Line had been crossed.
But Mummy couldn’t let go without a fight. “Ma, what’s the harm with new flavours? I have never interfered or crossed paths with you in the kitchen. But if I wish to please my children every once in a while, how is that unfair?”
Sergeant Mummy was stunned to see this confrontation. She had only heard of the General’s temper after marrying into the Haldar household, but this was the first time in 12 years she was witnessing it raw. The Radcliffe Line had been crossed.
The Sergeant had spoken back to the General, and that was when the Cold War began. The glass jars with orange spices were banished from the kitchen. The storeroom got a new modern stove and was lit only thrice a week. The pot stirred in silence every now and then, but the trepidation that came with the new-found cavalry of the Sergeant sent shockwaves through the two floors. Joshodha and Mira washed the store-room utensils when the General left for an adda or a nap.
The division between exploration and devotion had happened. Flashes of irritation often danced in the air, but both knew this kitchen had room for only one way—theirs.
Tension sat on the dining table as an invisible seasoning, and we had to pretend to eat our idlis with an expression of compromise. The appé pan was set against the boisterous 40-centimetre copper kadhai.
As we watched this gastronomical ceasefire unfold year after year with newer intensities, we held our tiffin boxes close to our hearts. We ate whatever was packed, fearing being banished by the other.
One such day, in the piercing heat of May, my brother and I sat cross-legged on the classroom floor, tiffin boxes that opened before us like an unopened letter from home. The lids were unclasped with a hesitation that had nothing to do with hunger. Mine held a cluster of soft idlis nestled beside a steel Katori of sambhar that had tipped a little in transit at one corner. His held a modest scoop of cholar dal, two posto boris glossy with ghee and three loochis flattened in the morning rush.
We looked at our boxes, then at each other. I tore off a piece, dipped it into the amber broth and let it sit on my tongue for a moment longer than usual. My brother crunched into his bori, and the sound felt like a verdict. The salty, earthy crumble of the lentil dumpling was the same taste as before.
Neither of us spoke as we chewed, for each of us knew in our silence that we had chosen our sides.
***
Aditi Dasgupta has honed her craft of writing through a Diploma in Translation & Creative Writing at Ahmedabad University, a residency at Yale, and the Institute for World Literatures at Harvard.Her words have appeared in Borderless Journal, The Wise Owl Literary Magazine, The Hooghly Review, Pangyrus Literary Magazine's upcoming anthology A Table to Hold the World, WritingWomenCo, InkNest Poetry, MeanPepperVine, SheThePeopleTV x Usawa, and The Writer’s Hour Magazine. You can find her on Instagram: @girlinkafkaverse.
