Chef

by Jaspreet Singh

  General Sahib was the chief of Northern Command. He resided in the second biggest house in the capital city, Srinagar. From the slopes of the camp the river looked like a blue-skinned python flowing through the valley. There were nine bridges spanning the waters: the first was called Zero, and the second Bridge Number One and the last Bridge Number Eight. Not far from Zero Bridge was the old city with timber-framed houses and crowded bazaars and pagoda-shaped mosques. The most famous mosque was white, made entirely of marble, and it stood next to a green Sufi shrine. At the outskirts of the city were the ruins and the Mughal garden built by the Emperor in the seventeenth century. Our camp sat next to the garden on the slopes of a hill. Between the ruins and the camp was an eighteen-hole golf course and on its left was another hill with a white mansion on top. This was the Governor’s residence, the Raj Bhavan, the biggest house in Srinagar. The Governor, I heard, loved international cuisine and once or twice (before my arrival) Sahib had loaned Chef Kishen to him.

  General Sahib ate breakfast at six-thirty in the morning. Two days a week papaya and stuffed aloo-parathas (which he ate with his hands), and the rest of the time English breakfast of the Raj (with knife and fork). Lunch he ate in the office. We sent hot tiffin to his office building through the orderly.

  The kitchen window faced the golf course, and I would watch Sahib play in the evenings with other officers, and on occasions with the Governor himself. Often I worried for them because we were so close to the land of the enemy. On the right side of the golf course, across the river, was a little village, and beyond the village, on the blue mountains, was the enemy. Often fighting would start on the brown mountain, which belonged neither to us nor to them. The sound of machine guns would rebound in the valley and invade our lives. But then the guns would stop for a while and the delicious sounds of bugles and military bagpipes from our camp and the enemy camp would waft inside the kitchen, and mix with the sounds of coals in the tandoor.

  Dinner was the main meal of the day. Sahib had good taste and appetite and a weakness for Kashmiri dishes. Mughlai mutton with turnips, rogan josh, kebab nargisi, lotus roots-n-rhizomes, gongloo, karam saag, the infinitely slow-cooked nahari, and the curd-flavored meatballs of gushtaba. He ate these dishes licking his fingers, and used knife and fork for foreign preparation only, for dishes from Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Russia.

  Since Chef had received training at foreign embassies in Delhi, international cuisine was his greatest strength. But he taught me mostly to subvert those recipes. ‘Foreigners have colonized us for a long time, Kip. Now it is our turn. We will take their food and make it our own . . .

  ‘Pay attention to simple things, Kip. If one cannot deal with a simple dish properly, there is no way one will be able to handle the more sophisticated. Take a tomato, for instance. What is the taste of this tomato? There is no such thing as the set taste of a tomato. Taste lies in the surface, the way you cut it . . .

  ‘Before cutting a tomato, give it the reverence it deserves and ask: Tomato, what would you like to become? Do you want to be alone? Or do you prefer company? Apricot, what would you like to become? Would you like to become more than yourself in the company of saffron?

  ‘Saffron, who are you?’

  The kitchen opened onto a smaller room. In that room I would skin chickens, peel battalions of potatoes, slice chilies, and pluck coriander leaves off stems. Connected to this room was a larger room. There we ate or played cards and had meetings at the wooden table with Chef. Spitting was forbidden in this room.

  Chef began work at six in the morning, and two days a week he would invite me in the evening to bike with him along the river. Calling Kashmir paradise does not do justice. The first PM of our country once said (in English): Kashmir is the face of a beloved that one sees in a dream and that fades away on awakening. Nehru knew Kashmir better than the leaders nowadays. Chef and I would bike past the Nehru Memorial, past the bakery on Residency Road, past Zero Bridge, past hundreds of houseboats with names like Neil Armstrong, Cleopatra, Texas Spitfire, Dawn of Paradise, Heevan, past the Dal Lake Floating Market, where vendors of fruits and vegetables sat in motionless shikaras, and the smell of fresh produce mingled with the odor of defecation, and we would make a loop and bike back to the Mughal garden, and it was there on the slopes of the garden one day he put his arm around my shoulder and pointed to the buildings in the valley below. State Assembly. Cricket Stadium. Post Office. Mughal Fort. Radio Kashmir. Governor’s mansion. The city. It was a compact medieval city, punctuated by modern buildings and ancient ruins. Buddhist ruins. Hindu ruins. Muslim ruins. I was very moved by their presence.

  ‘It is difficult to breathe here,’ said Chef.

  ‘Because of the ruins?’ I asked.

  ‘No, because there are so many mosques here. Understand?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘You see that white marble building by the lake?’

  ‘Yes, Chef.’

  ‘Guess what?’

  ‘Looks like a mosque. But it has only one minaret.’

  ‘In that mosque some dangerous Kashmiris meet to create trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘They talk about azadi. Freedom.’

  ‘I see, Chef.’

  ‘Lots of mosques down there.’

  ‘The place looks like the city of mosques, Chef.’

  ‘Fanatics!’

  ‘Even inside our camp, Chef. On the left, I see that stone mosque.’

  ‘No longer a mosque. The army converted it to good use. It is the military hospital, kid.’

  The hospital windows (and the dome) were lit up orange by the last light. The sun was about to set.

  ‘I am feeling cold, Chef.’

  ‘There is a remedy,’ he said.

  ‘Remedy?’

  ‘Get yourself a phudee.’

  ‘A what, Chef?’

  ‘A cavity.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Get yourself a woman.’

  I shut my eyes. The wind whistled between the mountains.

  ‘Chef, you should not say that.’

  ‘Get yourself –’

  ‘Chef, what does this city look like in winter?’

  ‘A white calico,’ he said. ‘Snow covers all the rooftops and streets down in the valley and hides all the ungainly parts, just like a sari hides the ungainly parts of a wom –’

  ‘White, the color of mourning,’ I stammered.

  ‘Kip, no more mourning-forning,’ he said.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘You need a woman.’

  ‘Chef, in summers are there mosquitoes in Kashmir?’

  ‘Mosques and mosquitoes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The mosques we can manage, but we are still learning how to eradicate the mosquitoes.’

  ‘How does one eradicate?’

  ‘Hit them in the balls.’

  ‘Chef is joking.’

  ‘There is another way. If you make them fly out of the mosques, the wind will freeze their balls. You see the flags outside the mosques? Sometimes they flutter like insane creatures in the wind. Cold winds come from the glacier and madden them.’

  ‘Where is the glacier?’ I asked.

  He pointed towards the distant mountains on my right, and my gaze remained fixed on the glaring whiteness that covered them.

  ‘Siachen Glacier, kid.’

  So that was Siachen. It was staring back at us. I grew silent. I had been feeling its presence for a while. The beast had swallowed my father. Father’s plane had crashed on Siachen. The wing landed not far from the bakery in Srinagar, but the main body of the plane disappeared in a deep crevasse.

  ‘That glacier is bigger than the city of Bombay, kid.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I knew your father,’ he said, clearing his throat.

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘Only from a distance. I knew him, he didn’t know me. I was only a cook.’

  I kept silent.


  ‘Seeing the wing had fallen in the bazaar the loathsome Kashmiris stepped out of their shops and chanted anti-India slogans. Our boys had to shoot one or two to disperse the crowd. The wing as you know is now in the War Museum in Delhi.’

  ‘Did Father have his uniform on that day?’

  ‘Let the dead rest,’ he said. ‘At your age you must think about women.’

  He moved closer. His breath fell on my face, smell of cardamom.

  ‘Your father has become one with the glacier, Kip. It was not long after the President decorated his chest with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest decoration our army gives to the brave.’

  ‘He fought two wars with the enemy.’

  ‘Yes. And because of that the army wanted to make you an officer.’

  I said nothing. I turned my gaze towards the bikes, which were leaning against a tree not far from us, his saddle higher than mine.

  ‘But I have heard that you could not clear the medical exam, Kirpal. Is this true? Is this their indirect way? To make you a chef first, and then promote you? An officer’s son will always become an officer. Certain things never change in our country.’

  I surveyed his face and thought ‘I am looking at eyes that have looked at my father.’ There were things he knew about my father that he would never reveal to me.

  ‘Is it possible?’ I asked, moving away from him. ‘My worst fear is that the glacier might release Father’s body in the land of the enemy and –’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted. That was impossible. He drew a picture of the glacier on a torn sheet of paper. Then he asked me to label it in ‘Inglish’.

  ‘You see, Kip, the tongue of the glacier is in India and the whole mass is shifting slowly towards our side. His body will definitely be released on the soil of our country. The only way the body might transfer to Pakistan is if the glacier starts retreating very fast and becomes a part of the river, which is unlikely.’

  ‘Nothing is unlikely,’ I said.

  ‘Certain things are unlikely,’ he said and touched my cheek.

  I asked him to withdraw his hand. Chef took a while.

  ‘Not so long ago,’ he said, ‘there was an old Norwegian tourist who while trekking through the Himalayas found the body of his father at the foot of Siachen. The glacier had released the body fully preserved. His father was much younger than him.’

  ‘I read that news in the paper,’ I said. ‘Two days later the glacier released the body of a soldier whose plane crashed before the Partition.’

  ‘Good news,’ exclaimed Chef. ‘The soldier belongs to India.’

  ‘Do we know for sure?’

  ‘Hundred percent, kid,’ he said, pinching my cheek. I stood up and wiped my uniform.

  ‘Your face turns color like the plane trees,’ he said.

  We biked down the hill, and bought eggs, goat meat, karam, lotus roots, and vegetables from the bazaar.

  6

  Autumn is not a season in India. In Kashmir autumn arrives in the month of October. Through the soot-coated kitchen window I would watch the chenar trees dance. They moved like dervishes in the wind. I had never seen autumn before. Both sides of the streets were lined by plane trees. The whole valley would burst into Technicolor. The leaves turned as they fell on the roofs and the streets, turning any surface into a red and yellow and orange carpet. The wind carried them, swirled them, then abandoned the leaves one by one. Contemplating their sadness I would forget my own, and I would forget, too, the Siachen Glacier. Even if blindfolded, I will still be able to detect the chenar leaves. I can’t forget the smell of cut grass, and the smell of plane trees. How sad the trees look when shedding leaves, and yet how happy, as if trying to kiss the whole world. Autumn is not the end of happiness. It is the beginning.

  I was almost twenty years old, bursting with energy and I had yet to sleep with a woman. Realistically, what were my chances? In the camp there were wives of other soldiers and officers. Outside the camp lived the Kashmiris. So there was no chance at all.

  Often I would cycle past the Kashmiris’ timber-framed houses and past children with runny noses and the old men with henna-dyed beards smoking hookahs. But it was rare to spot a woman. Then one day, standing by the banks of the river, I noticed a young woman washing apples. No sari, but loose drawstring pants and a loose knee-length robe, a pheran. Her breasts jiggled inside. The pheran was wet around her belly, the salwar was rolled up to the knees. Both feet inside the water, and the channel was clear and cold and transparent and very quiet. Now and then she stirred the quietness with the apples and her delicate feet. I observed her, standing on the rock. The nape of her neck was smooth and clean. Kashmiri women do not dress in a normal way. In summer the women wear light cotton pherans. In winter they prefer dark woolen ones made of pashmina. The garment is embroidered in front and on the edges. When it gets very cold the women tuck their arms inside. Some carry firepots close to their bellies (as if heavy with a child) and the arms of the pheran oscillate left and right like pendulums of time.

  She turned only once and our eyes locked for a brief second.

  ‘What are you going to do with the apples?’ I asked.

  She smiled, stepped out of the water and started heading towards the street behind the trees. She was more or less my age.

  Next day, same time, I returned to the same rock by the river. Salaam, I heard a man’s voice.

  ‘Come have tea at our house.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I am her relative,’ he said.

  ‘Whose relative?’

  ‘I am the brother of the woman you had a conversation with yesterday.’

  ‘Hardly a conversation,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. I am a well-respected man with a very responsible job. I drive the city bus.’

  ‘I have no time,’ I said. ‘My break is over.’

  ‘Come for two minutes only.’

  The man guided me through narrow cobble-stoned streets (with open sewer drains on both sides) to his house. Boys were playing cricket in the street. Just outside he requested me in good Urdu to remove my shoes. The moment we entered he said, ‘Two teas.’ We sat on a carpet with a variety of floral designs. Beautiful calligraphic scrolls hugged the walls, and the furniture smelled of pine wood. ‘Are you married?’ he asked. It was his first question. ‘No,’ I answered. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘You looked to me as if you were not married.’

  It was then the woman entered the drawing room. She was carrying a tray. On a plate, which trembled on the tray, she had brought along tscvaru. The shortbread was coated with poppy seeds. She did not look at me directly. She bent low and served us tscvaru. Her hair was long and alive and for a moment I thought she was going to join us.

  ‘The samovar is on,’ she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘I have never seen a samovar,’ I said to the brother. ‘May I observe it in the kitchen?’

  ‘She’ll bring the tea here only,’ he said.

  ‘Really I am in a hurry,’ I said.

  The man remained quiet. I imagined her in the kitchen with her samovar, something amazing that I heard came from the Russians.

  ‘Does she go to college?’ I asked.

  ‘Sister was a brilliant student,’ he said.

  ‘What field?’

  ‘Bee farmer,’ he said.

  ‘Bee farmer?’

  ‘B. Pharma,’ he said. ‘Bachelor of Pharmaceutical. She had to discontinue because of the turmoil in the valley.’

  ‘I would like to get to know her,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I can go to cinema or theater with her?’

  He cleared his throat and stared at me as if I had come from some other planet, and told me that the cinema houses (except the military theatre) had long been shut down because of the turmoil. Kashmir is not now what it used to be, he said.

  The woman returned to the room and bent low and left the tea tray on a small table. This time she made a somewhat prolonged eye contact with me. Her face was very fair. E
yes cold blue. Lips, the color of apples.

  ‘Fast,’ said the brother.

  She poured tea into two cups, chipped at the top. My cup cracked the moment it came in contact with hot fluid. I remember the sound of water being poured, the silence of water dripping on the carpet. But my hostess’s face revealed no embarrassment. Keeping her gaze fixed on the carpet she recited a couplet in Urdu:

  Es ghar ki kya deekh bhal karain, roz cheese koi nai toot jatea hai?

  How does one take care of this house, every day some new thing breaks apart?

  The poem cheered me up, and yet her brother looked angry. She ran to the kitchen and fetched a brand-new cup. It seemed the thing was meant for very special guests. I drank the kehva tea greedily. It was delicious! Strands of saffron floated on top, releasing the color. It had come right out of the samovar and the brew was strong. I detected crushed cardamoms, kagzee almonds, and asked myself: why is it that places with the worst possible hygiene manage to manufacture the best possible tea?

  ‘The tea is la’zeez,’ he said. ‘Delicious!’

  ‘Why is she not sitting with us?’

  ‘She is in the kitchen,’ he said.

  ‘I, too, spend most of my time in kitchen,’ I said.

  ‘Let me be very upfront about your situation,’ he said. ‘I have no objections.’

  ‘What do you mean no objections?’

  ‘No objections to marriage.’

  ‘Marriage?’ I clarified. ‘Whose marriage?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘let us have a conversation. If you want to marry her, I have no objections.’

  The tea was very good.

  He gulped down his cup. ‘I do not like too much Indian military presence in the valley. Despite this I am happy you have a steady job. Will you marry my sister?’

  ‘I need time,’ I said.

  ‘No problem,’ he said.

  I stood up with the cup in my hand and he rose to his feet. He pointed his index finger towards the calligraphy on the wall. I walked closer to read clearly.

  ‘This word means peace,’ I said.