Nimita's Place

by Akshita Nanda

  I make the thumbs-down mudra. “You can keep your WWF whatever. Celebrity chef Arbaaz Khan uses Indian pressure cookers and so does celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. See?” There are smiling pictures of both on the cardboard boxes lining the shelves below the samples.

  “Isn’t Arbaaz Khan a Bollywood actor?”

  “So? Bollywood actors can’t also cook at home?”

  “Nimita, ‘celebrity chef’ does not mean—”

  “Not Germans, not Indians, the French invented pressure cookers,” Chia Ying says. “Spain made it an industry.”

  I turn to stare at her. She is reading from her cellphone.

  “Is that Wikipedia?”

  She nods.

  “Wikipedia is crowdsourced, which means people can say what they like.”

  “Wikipedia is more accurate because crowdsourcing can reduce researcher bias.” Chia Ying looks at her screen. “Can’t believe we’re arguing about this. I’m so bored.”

  “Okay, okay.” I look at the cookers. Mustafa doesn’t have the same brand of Prestige that came with me in 2011—“old model, ma’am,” the counter staff said—and the Hawkins has a drop lid which I’m not comfortable fitting on.

  The Vinod is nice but three litres is too large for just me. Or even just us three.

  “I’d go for the double-metal bottom,” Irving says.

  “For Indian food? It might burn out faster.”

  “So. Bored. Guys!”

  Finally I pick the new Prestige model. Irving sighs, but puts two boxes in the shopping trolley.

  “I just want one.”

  “Oh, this is for me,” he says, patting the box holding the triply expensive WMF from Badabing-Whatever. “Research purposes.”

  Irving’s book is no longer Bao Wow: The International Art of Buns. Now it is In Hot Water: The Steamy Story of Cooking.

  “Chia Ying, we’re done.”

  She puts her phone into her pocket. “Hooray! Now fun stuff.”

  First Irving has to go to the food section to stock up on spices like oregano. I buy rice and atta and dal in bulk. Chia Ying tosses packets of nuts and biscuits into the cart.

  Then we go across buildings and down the mall to the clothing section.

  “Discount on saris! Discount on saris!” Chia Ying runs around like a maniac. “Ooh, look at this. Perfect for Christmas.” She’s visiting Raymond in New Delhi.

  “No! Bad Chia Ying. Bad, bad!” I slap the glittering pink fabric out of her hands. “That’s a zip-up sari. Nobody wears that except babies in diapers.”

  To wear a sari properly, you fold the fabric around your waist such that it falls perfectly around your body. In a zip-up, the folds are made around mannequins and then sewn like a skirt you step into. All you need to do then is zip the skirt up and throw the extra fabric across your chest like a pallu. It looks like the real thing only to blind people.

  “You want a sari, here.” I take her to the section with actual saris and pick a few different shades of pink in chiffon and georgette.

  “These are expensive.”

  “But gorgeous,” I say, draping a sari around her. “Look, I’ll let you buy a readymade blouse, okay? Even a spandex or velvet one.” I would never wear velvet with chiffon, but if Chia Ying does, people will excuse her because she is not Indian.

  Irving navigates the trolley towards us. “These aisles are too narrow. Why do I have to push this thing?”

  “Shut up, kitchen slave.”

  His eyes narrow. “Objection. The pressure cooker has been replaced. I am no longer your slave.”

  “Objection overruled. Technically you haven’t paid for the pressure cooker yet. You are still my slave.” I look at Chia Ying. “Irving, go get the lilac one on the second table? And the light blue?”

  He looks at Chia Ying too. “Good choice.”

  I start taking the sari off Chia Ying and she says: “Kitchen slave? What have I missed?”

  “Long story.”

  Irving comes back with the blue and a sequined purple that makes Chia Ying clap her hands.

  I drape the purple around her and whisper: “See, I told you. He’s totally a six.” We had bet ten dollars when he moved in, but she still won’t pay me.

  Shopping takes two hours. Queuing up at the checkout counter takes 45 minutes. It’s 9.30pm before the pressure cookers, saris and assorted food items are bundled in giant plastic bags with the Mustafa logo on them, and sealed with unbreakable plastic ties.

  “I’m so hungry,” we all say together.

  “Dosas?” I point to the full-vegetarian Ananda Bhavan across the road.

  “Kebabs!” Chia Ying points skywards to Mustafa’s rooftop restaurant.

  “Food fair,” Irving says. “We’re taking a cab to Geylang Serai. It’s hashtag halal on IWan2Eat this month and I need to get some shots of the Ramadan fair.”

  “What, no! It’s so hot,” Chia Ying says.

  “No, it’s not. It rained earlier today.” Irving picks up the bags—all the bags!—and starts walking.

  “Have you ever tried getting a cab from Mustafa? It’s impossible,” I shout, just as he sticks out one hand full of shopping bags. A blue taxi stops in front of him.

  “What’s hashtag halal?” Chia Ying asks in the cab.

  “It was my idea,” I tell her.

  I’ve never been to the Ramadan fair in Singapore. It’s even bigger than the Diwali fair organised by Jothi Store & Flower Shop on the other end of Little India, near Tekka Market. Like the Diwali fair, the stalls in Geylang Serai sell food, clothes, home accessories, cheap bling and also expensive jewellery. There are carpets from Turkey, hijab fashion from Dubai, salwar suit sets from India and Pakistan, wedding clothes from Indonesia—readymade and half-made—and furniture from Malaysia.

  And the food! There are masala dosas but also dum biryani Indian-style and Singapore-style briyani rice with curry. There are Turkish kebabs and vine-wrapped parcels called dolmas, Malaysian rendang and laksa, Indonesian tauhu goreng, shaved ice with fruits and flavours from Korea, Japanese tempura bhajiyas, American hot dogs with mustard and even a kulfi falooda stall! It looks authentic; it says “Pakistani Kulfi with Real Milk. Real Falooda”.

  “Right, so this is what I need you to do.” Irving gives Chia Ying and me fifty dollars each. “Go get one of everything that looks good from each major food stall. I want the change back and if possible, receipts.”

  “What are we looking for?” Chia Ying asks.

  “Whatever looks good. Something that looks authentic. Anything that is unusual. Halal dim sum? That sort of thing. C go north, N go west and I’ll wait in this section for a table.” There are wooden benches and stand-up tables for diners but every single square centimetre is packed with men in skullcaps, women in tudungs and children in prams or laps.

  I find a huge tandoor belching fire and smoke and proper parathas with laccha whorls. I buy one paratha and three pieces of tandoori chicken. Plus a hariyali kebab. The stall-holder speaks Punjabi so I get a bit of a discount. When he’s attending to another customer, I sneak away to the stall behind his, where the dum biryani smells more amazing.

  I find halal dim sum, round Chinese buns filled with sweet red-bean paste, custard, meat or vegetables. “Chicken, not pork in the bao,” the stall-holder says. He holds out a tray of little yellow packets topped with brown meat and red dots. “The siew mai is mutton.”

  On the way to the kulfi falooda guy, I find a drinks seller and stand in line for calamansi.

  Someone taps me and I turn. “Oh. Hi!”

  Siddiqui smiles at me. “How nice to see you. Having dinner?” He looks at the packets I am carrying and his eyebrows go up.

  “I’m also buying for my housemates,” I tell him.

  Siddiqui laughs. “Have you met my wife, Rehima?”

  Rehima is slightly shorter than Siddiqui, much rounder and wears a long, embroidered split kurta with parallel pants, Lahori style. Her chunni is wrapped around her head in traditional Punjabi style.
No Malay tudung.

  “That’s so beautiful, what you’re wearing,” I say without thinking. “Oh! Sorry. Nice to meet you. I’m Nimita.”

  Rehima’s laugh rolls out from her bones into yours. “Very nice to meet you, beta. Mashallah, this would look very good on you. Next time I’m in Lahore I’ll get one for you. Green colour will suit, no? Mehendi green, perfect on your skin.”

  “No, no, Bhabhi, thank you but please don’t go to any trouble.” These Punjabis. You dare not tell Itty-Bua or Pritty-Bua you like anything in their house because it will go home with you.

  “Have you tried the taka-tak?” Siddiqui says.

  “What’s that?

  “Taka-tak? It’s a typical Lahori dish. The kaleji and magaz—the organs, you know— cut up and fried or roasted on a hot steel surface? The sound is taka-tak. I thought your Dadi would have known.”

  “Oh! Dadi used to love eating those things before—” Before the stroke. The meat was too dark, too intense a flavour for Mummy and me, but Dadi and Dad polished it off. “I didn’t know the name.”

  Siddiqui turns to Rehima. “Her Dadi was from Lahore. Model Town.”

  “Yes, yes, I remember.” She smiles. “You must come home and have proper food. I’ll make for you, just like my grandmother taught me.”

  “Thank you.” What else to say?

  Siddiqui clears his throat. “Actually, we were thinking,” he looks at Rehima, “a small party, you know? End of the month? For Eid? I hope you can come, and bring that roommate of yours also.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” What can I say?

  Should I go?

  “If you come early, I’ll show you how some of the things are made,” Rehima says.

  “Thank you so much.” I’m going to say some excuse then I remember hashtag halal. “Actually, I am sorry to be rude, but I also have one more housemate. He is very interested in cooking, especially halal cooking. In fact, he runs a food blog on Instagram. Very popular.”

  “Of course,” Rehima says immediately. “Bring him, bring him. I have been trying to teach one man to cook for years.” She digs Siddiqui in the side with her elbow. “Maybe I can teach your friend at least.”

  Siddiqui points over my shoulder. “Your turn,” he says.

  I turn to the drinks seller and order three glasses of calamansi.

  Back to the seating area. Irving has found a wooden bench and piled our shopping all over one side of the table. A Malay family eyes him from the other end.

  I hold up the packets. “Success!”

  By the time I’ve spread out everything and explained what’s what, Chia Ying arrives with her share. She got the kulfi, hooray!

  “And Turkish kebabs, and rendang and laksa and check this out.” She holds out a plastic bowl of round balls in soup. “Halal fish-ball noodles. Stuffed with cheese.”

  “Very nice, very nice.” Irving arranges all the food three times before taking out a big camera and two lights from his backpack. He gives us one each to hold and positions us before moving behind the surprised Malay family.

  “Higher, C. Lower yours, N. Okay, test shot.” The flash goes off and I wince. “Higher, N!”

  “You said lower!”

  “You dropped your arm. Again.”

  I shift the flash to my left hand.

  “One more test! Now for the real shot! And again!”

  And again. And again.

  “I’m so hungry,” Chia Ying says.

  “Almost done.” Irving takes a few more shots. “Okay, now for the action shots. C sit here, N sit there. Okay, C take a kebab. N take—no, not that.” He slaps my hand.

  “Ow!”

  “That’s a beef satay stick, you idiot. Take this one. It’s mutton. Spear a cucumber on it for colour contrast. C, add an onion.”

  “Chia Ying doesn’t like onions.”

  “Yah, I don’t like onions,” Chia Ying says.

  “I’m not asking you to eat it. I’m asking you to hold it.”

  “Just looking at onions makes me nauseous.”

  “Will you both just do as I say?”

  “Here, Chia Ying, exchange.” I give her the stick with cucumber and take the kebab-and-onion. Irving rolls his eyes.

  “Open wide and look happy!”

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  The Malay family moves off the bench to a stand-up table.

  “Turn your head to the left, N. Your other left!”

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  “Look happy! Look happy!”

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  Finally Irving puts the camera down. He looks way too happy.

  “Can we eat now?”

  He waves his hand. “Yes, yes, feed your faces. I’ve got to upload this.”

  Just as I finish two satay sticks and start on the biryani, the Malay family comes back to the table. Husband, wife, two teenage children.

  “You’re Irving Wan?”

  He looks up. “Hi.”

  The man pumps his hand. “I love your blog. Hashtag halal for the win, man! FTW, man!” He takes out his cellphone. “Selfie?”

  “Sure.”

  Irving’s turn to pose, first with the husband, then the husband and the wife, then with each teenager, and finally with the entire family.

  “That beef rendang recipe?” the husband says. “I made it and my wife could not believe it. Sedap, brother!”

  “Thank you.” Irving waves them off.

  When he turns back, Chia Ying and I have our hands out.

  “Oh, Mr Wan! You are our number waaan!”

  “Please, Mr Wan, selfie with your number waan fan?”

  Irving digs into his laksa. His ears are pink and he’s smiling.

  “I’m going to get you even more fans,” I tell him.

  “Oh? How?” He starts on the last of the satay—all the beef ones.

  “My Pakistani colleague invited us all to an Eid party and his wife says if we come early, she’ll show you how to make traditional Lahori food.”

  Irving sticks a cucumber and rice square on his satay stick. Chia Ying drops hers.

  “You are going to a party,” she says.

  “We are all going. We are all invited.”

  “No, but you, Nimita Sachdev, are voluntarily going to a party.” She turns to Irving. “She doesn’t like going out, you know.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he says.

  “Shut up. If you all don’t want to go, we won’t go.”

  “I want to go,” Chia Ying says. “I’m just surprised you want to go.”

  “Well, Irving is doing hashtag halal and that time he didn’t go to the iftar party because—”

  “Because what?”

  I shut my mouth. Irving didn’t go to Hafeezah’s iftar party that time. He wanted to finish his game and then eat xiao long bao for his book, he said, but now that he has changed the book title, I think it was because he felt funny going alone.

  Irving eats his satay. His cheeks are red now, probably because it is very hot outdoors and the peanut sauce is extra spicy.

  My face also feels hot because of the spicy sauce. I drink up all the calamansi, down to the ice chips. “Hey, Chia Ying, you want more drinks?”

  “I’ll go get. Calamansi, right?”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “Thank you,” says Irving. He takes another stick of satay.

  We don’t talk while Chia Ying is away. His mouth is full of satay and I suck on the ice chips, waiting for my cheeks to cool down.

  4.

  “The most important thing is to cook it on a low flame. Otherwise the milk will burn.” Rehima, in a fabulous peacock blue salwar kameez, speaks to Irving’s handycam.

  I barely recognise the dish simmering on the stove. Rehima calls it “seviyaan” but along with the milk and dried vermicelli she has thrown in handfuls of almonds, walnuts and dried figs. “These walnuts from America are almost as good as the ones we used to get from Afghanistan,” she tells the camera, pointing to a handful she’s picked up
for the benefit of the camera.

  When Dadi makes seviyaan, it is just long thin noodles in milk with sugar and some elaichi for flavour. Maybe some raisins and almonds, but she would never have added figs.

  We came three hours early for Siddiqui’s Eid party and I’m trying hard not to sweat through my nice silk salwar kameez. It was hot fashion when Mummy and I bought it in Colaba last Diwali and was supposed to keep me cool in the Singapore weather.

  Singapore weather is one thing. A busy Singapore kitchen being used to make a full-on Punjabi feast is another, even if it is a very big, very modern kitchen in one of the most up-market condos I have ever visited. I want to ask Rehima if she and Siddiqui bought this place, but Irving is still interviewing her about the food.

  I do recognise some dishes. Mutton biryani, dum pukht, where the rice has been cooked with the mutton in a container sealed with fresh atta, or dough, to capture the flavours. This is different from Singaporean nasi briyani, where the meat curry is ladled on separately.

  A ghosht of chicken cooked in tomato and onions in a proper thick kadai. It can be eaten with naan or khameeri roti, which has poppy seeds sprinkled on it.

  “Poppy seeds! In Singapore? I thought they were illegal,” Irving says for the camera.

  Rehima laughs. “Is this going online?” she says. “Yes? Then these are fennel seeds. The taste may not be authentic but it is still good.” She turns her head and rolls her eyes at me.

  Rehima sounds like Pritty-Bua when she jokes for the camera. She scolds her servant Asiah just as Itty-Bua would. “No, no, don’t mix the blue and green Corelle sets. Green plates and bowls on that side table where the vegetarian food will go.”

  “You’re making vegetarian food specially for your guests?” Irving asks.

  “Lots of Lahore delicacies are pure vegetarian. Did you know Lahore used to be a Hindu capital? Even the name of the city comes from the Loh temple, which honours the son of Rama. Rama of the Ramayana, you know the story?”

  Rehima gives a summary of the Ramayana for Irving’s camera and gets the story correct.