Chef

by Jaspreet Singh

  I am jumping ahead of myself.

  I did gather courage once, I did walk into Colonel Chowdhry’s house once. I was under the impression he was away, but the man was home. Both he and his wife received me on the lawn. She asked me to sit down in the chair, but I looked at the colonel and his face didn’t approve that I accept her offer. Lower ranks are not supposed to sit with commissioned officers, even if one happens to be the brother of the officer in question. I kept standing, hands clasped behind my back. It is good you came, said the wife. She was also standing. The reason I came, I said, looking her in the eye, is because I would like to hear Father’s Partition story. Father never told me the details.

  Yes, I thought so, she said. I think about you often since our meal at the Gen’s.

  ‘Who? This boy Kirpal?’ interrupted the colonel.

  ‘No, no. Major Iqbal,’ she said. ‘He was the silent type, he rarely opened up. This happened before I met you. Once my ex-husband and I invited Iqbal for dinner. God knows what it was really, perhaps the combination of food and drink and music made the Major open up that evening, but when conversation turned to the Partition he grew silent again. I poured him another drink.’

  The colonel’s wife stopped briefly and sat down in the chair. Why don’t you two sit down as well? she said, hitting her forehead with her delicate hand. The colonel sat down immediately, and I sat on the ground. But she stood up and stepped towards me and extended her hand and helped me move to the empty chair. The colonel looked in the other direction. At first I felt uncomfortable in the chair, but it became increasingly clear to me that she wanted to treat me like a son. This is how she related my father’s story to me in the colonel’s angry presence.

  Month of August, 1947. India had just been partitioned by the British. Thousands of Sikhs in the city of Lahore suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the new border, your father, Major Iqbal, told me. I was nine, he said. I used to tie my long hair into a knot on my head; I had not started wearing a turban yet. I used to cover the knot with a tiny patch of muslin (my mother had devised a rubber band mechanism to hold the patch tight). Breakfast was ready, and my uncles and aunts and grandparents were all gathered in the living room. I can see the carpeted floors, I can see the velvet sofas, and through the window I can see the mango tree in the yard. Grandmother had prepared aloo-parathas in the kitchen, she tried to persuade Mother not to send me to the class because of tension between communities, but Mother said education was important. I ran all the way to the school with my heavy satchel only to find a big notice at the gates. School was cancelled. The city was on fire. The cinema halls were closed, and there was fire and smoke all over and Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim bodies were burning everywhere, and I ran back to our house through charred streets. When I got home, I found all the doors open and the water faucet running for no particular reason. In the living room, on the velvet sofas and on the red carpets, I found the chopped-off heads of my grandparents and mother and siblings and other family members; the killers had gathered them up, and piled them up neatly, as if they were market fruit.

  That evening, I boarded the train to India. But it ended up it was the wrong train, said your father. It was filled with Muslims. The train had come to the newly created Pakistan from India and it was not returning to India. He said, I cannot forget the look on the faces of my fellow passengers, it was as if they were worried for me. I was very afraid, but I tried not to show it. I kept staring at the woman sitting on the seat across from me. She stood out from the human mass around her, she was eating a mango, sucking it (that is the right word), and now and then drops kept falling on her green toenails. She was wearing heels, and three layers of her clothing were touching her feet, the innermost circle or the hem belonging to her white petticoat, the second hem belonging to her red sari and the outermost belonging to her black burqa. Her face was not covered, but her head and the rest of the body was covered by the black burqa. Her hands and feet were not covered, and they appeared so liberated. The three circles or the three hems of petticoat, sari and burqa were swelling and shrinking in the wind, the train window was open and the wind was hitting us all a bit violently.

  The train stopped at a crowded platform. The wind stopped as well; now the air in the carriage grew hot and stagnant and oppressive. Through the window another train was visible on the other side of the platform. The carriages were painted red or simply rusty, with as many people inside as there were on the roof. On the platform five or six Muslims with naked swords were asking regular passengers if they had seen a Hindu or a Sikh on the train. The woman stopped eating her mango. She started staring at me, so hard it appeared her eyes were going to explode. Suddenly she grabbed my right wrist and pulled me towards her and shoved me quickly under her seat. I was not a very tall nine-year-old, so the squeeze was all right. The voices were now moving up and down the aisle of our train demanding Sikhs and Hindus. The woman started on the mango again. Drops started falling down, she was sucking it. The men were now extremely close to our compartment. For a moment I felt the woman was going to hand me over to them. She began tapping her heels and this terrified me under the seat. Why was she tapping? Why was she drawing attention? Were the heels trying to convey something to me? She tapped forcefully one last time and lifted the three hems of her burqa-sari-petticoat a bit in the air, then higher, and it was then I understood. I crawled inside. She immediately lowered the garments; now they touched the floor again. Suddenly it grew very dark around me.

  Where is the Sikh boy? demanded the mob. From the platform we definitely noticed a boy on this train, said a voice loudly.

  What Sikh? said a passenger.

  The men were suspicious and opened up several suitcases and looked under the seats. I heard them, I could not see a thing. I was trapped inside absolute darkness. It was like being in a movie theater alone, wrapped by the white screen, and no movie on. It was as if the real movie was happening in the world outside the theater. The woman kept eating her mango. Drops kept falling. No other passenger in the compartment said a word. I imagine they simply turned their heads in the other direction. They all were Muslims. When the train stopped again it was very dark and I crawled out from under her and she quickly untied the knot on my head and made my hair tumble down to look like a girl. This is all I can do, she said, I can do nothing more for you. Allah will protect you now. He will protect you. She kissed me on both cheeks, gave me a little food and walked me to the refugee camp on the edge of the city.

  This story, said the colonel’s wife, I don’t think I would have shared with you if you had not asked me the details. I will not be able to sleep tonight, she said.

  Memsahib was shaking now. My gaze remained fixed on her shoes. To this day I don’t understand, Kirpal, why your father shared this painful story. I recall when he was sharing the details it was as if he was not there, it was as if he did not care if we were there or not. Normally men censor certain parts of a story when in the presence of a woman, but Iqbal was elsewhere that evening and to him it did not matter if I was listening or not.

  ‘Listen, my boy,’ said the colonel, ‘it is time you go back to General Sahib’s residence.’

  ‘Sir.’ I stood up and clicked my heels.

  Memsahib ran indoors. I could not, therefore, say a proper shukriya to her. I have never been able to do what I really wanted to do. I am so weak.

  10

  Being a Sikh I am interested in hair. Some of my most sensuous memories are not connected to food at all. They are about hair. The way my mother would wash it, oil it, massage it, comb it, braid it, and tie a knot on top of my head. My hair was long and black and curly and whenever I dried it outdoors the wind would turn my head into a vortex. I cut my hair short fifteen years ago. But, during my time in Kashmir (the first four years) I had it long and used to tie a black turban. Sikhs believe in the holy book, the Adi Granth, and ten masters, Guru Nanak the first one and Guru Gobind Singh the last one. No one knows what the gurus really looked like
, but in calendars they appear as if lost in deep meditation, unaware of the bright halos behind their Sufi-style turbans. Their beards are black or gray, but always long and flowing gracefully.

  In Kashmir I tried to buy the Prophet Mohammed calendar. There was no such thing, I was told. It was hard to conjure him up. Every time I tried he would resemble one of the Sikh gurus.

  In Srinagar, in the mosque with a single minaret, there was a strand of the Prophet’s hair. It had been transported in a vial to Kashmir (in the luggage of a holy man) two or three centuries ago. Thousands of people gathered every year on a special day to be blessed by the holy relic. At first I thought the hair in the vial belonged to the head of the Prophet, but Chef corrected me. It comes from the Prophet’s beard, he said.

  If I have forgotten certain details from that time it is because I rarely got any sleep those days. The mosque was the holiest in Kashmir, but it had been hijacked by a group of militants, who used to gather in the hamaam to talk azadi.

  The vial was kept under heavy security. But one day it disappeared. We read about the theft in the papers. The Kashmiris took to the streets in millions demonstrating against our country, blaming our leaders. Government buildings and vehicles were set on fire and the situation got out of hand.

  My thoughts during those days of demonstrations kept turning to the colonel’s wife. On the third day of the demos I gathered the courage to walk again to her residence, but the orderly told me that Memsahib was in the living room taking dance lessons from an instructor. I waited on the lawns. Their dark forms, visible through the window, whirled and spun, but I could not hear the steps. ‘Kip,’ she beckoned me finally on the verandah.

  I folded my hands by way of greeting.

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I have come to talk to you.’

  ‘Talk to me?’

  ‘Yes.’ I hesitated for a moment. ‘You don’t look happy,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps you have come to look at my kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Memsahib.’

  ‘Come in then.’

  We passed through the living room. On the sofa a familiar man was sitting, the General’s ADC. Seeing him my heart froze with terror, but I saluted anyway. He was wearing a French-cuff shirt and his shoes looked expensive and gleamed with confidence.

  ‘Kip has come to inspect our kitchen,’ she told him.

  ‘I see,’ he said, staring at me.

  I followed her. There was nobody in the kitchen.

  She stood next to the fridge and I next to the sink.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘Now tell me –’

  ‘Yes, Memsahib.’

  ‘What have you heard about me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Liar,’ she said. ‘Your father was different.’

  ‘So far nothing, Memsahib.’

  ‘In that case soon you will start hearing things.’

  ‘Yes, Memsahib.’

  ‘I am like your Aunty,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Memsahib.’

  ‘Understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘If I hear things about you I will shut my ears.’

  ‘You will shut your ears?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Memsahib.’

  ‘Show me how.’

  I put fingers in my ears. I felt like a child.

  ‘Shut your eyes as well,’ she said.

  I did exactly as I was told. I closed my eyes.

  I heard her steps approaching me. Yet I felt uncertain. Then I felt her sari touch my shirt, and for a brief second she stabbed me with her pointed breasts. Then she stepped back and started slapping my face with the back of her hand. Left cheek. Right. Left again.

  ‘Aunty!’ I opened my eyes.

  ‘Don’t return,’ she said. ‘You are like a son to me.’

  She rushed to the next room and said something inane to the ADC and they resumed the dance lessons.

  I took the long way home to General Sahib’s residence. Wet inside my pants, I felt like running. Instead, I slowed down. The chants and slogans of the Kashmiris demonstrating in the city kept insulting my ears, and I could not shut them out.

  Two days later in the kitchen. I watched from behind the curtain, General Sahib was alone in the dining room with the colonel’s wife. She was looking beautiful, her voice carried on waves of laughter. The colonel was supposed to be there, too, both had been invited, but Sahib dispatched him for an emergency law-and-order meeting with the Police Chief and the Governor.

  The English they were speaking was fluent, with good idiom. Lunch was ready. Kebabs and rumali rotis. They were about to start when the red phone rang. Chef, he was standing close to the phone, answered.

  ‘General Kumar’s residence.’

  Sahib: ‘Who is it?’

  Chef: ‘Sir, the Prime Minister’s secretary is on the line . . . the PM would like to talk to you . . . Matter is urgent, sir.’

  Sahib: ‘Is he on the line?’

  Chef: ‘Sir, the secretary will now tell the PM you are available. She has asked me, sir, to tell you not to move away from the phone, sir.’

  For ten minutes there was absolute silence in the residence. It was hard for the colonel’s wife to remain silent, but she too was silent.

  Chef walked to the dining table on the tips of his toes to cover the dishes. That was the loudest sound during those ten minutes.

  The secretary called again.

  Chef: ‘PM is on the line, sir.’

  He stood glued to the dining table during the phone coversation. Later Chef shared with us in the kitchen the key details. The PM had basically told the General to locate and restore the holy relic to its proper place within forty-eight hours, no questions asked. The police failed to deliver so I am asking the army to take over, the PM had said.

  Never before had the General looked so worried and anxious, Chef told us back in the kitchen. Sahib’s face acquired the look of a man who had just been ordered (for the first time in his life) to slaughter a little goat. He scratched his head, plucked his hair while talking on the phone.

  ‘Sir,’ said the General to the PM. ‘We will do our best, sir. Yes, sir . . . No, sir . . . It will be done, sir.’ Right after the call ended he picked up the kebab on the table and for a long time kept moving the thing from left to right in his mouth without swallowing it.

  ‘What now?’ asked the colonel’s wife.

  Sahib kept working on the kebab.

  No one to this day knows how and where the vial containing the relic was found. But after forty-eight hours calm was restored. The army faced one more hurdle. Before the relic could be installed in the mosque, it had to be validated.

  The mosque named five holy imams to validate the holy relic. They were flown to Srinagar on DC-3 Dakota planes. Their job was to determine if the hair in the vial was authentic.

  The General’s ADC asked us in the kitchen to prepare a proper meal for the clerics. It is important to make them appreciate the high quality of our dishes. The ADC stared right through me during the conversation. Chef told me after: this is your real test, kid. The recruitment test was a fake. At this critical moment in my career and your career and General Sahib’s career, and at this critical juncture of Kashmir’s relationship with India, what food would you prepare?

  ‘Authentic Kashmiri,’ I suggested.

  ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘we will have to become Muslims.’

  ‘Convert to Islam?’

  ‘Of course. Yes.’

  ‘Chef is not serious.’

  ‘Chef is serious.’

  ‘If cooking Muslim food in the kitchen is going to establish peace in the country then I am willing to convert for a day,’ I said.

  ‘Bewakuf,’ he said. ‘Idiot.’

  Chef cooked Muslim Kashmiri delicacie
s with his own hands passionately and with great care, like a wazwan. Who taught him? I asked. Later, he said, I will tell you later, you Sikh. But he never did. For me it was a god-sent opportunity to learn the exotic cuisine, the names of Kashmiri Muslim dishes (thirty-six to be exact) unfamiliar to me, some right out of a fairy tale. I knew the Hindu Kashmiri dishes, but they were different. Certain Muslim dishes involved pounding the meat for seven or eight hours until it separated into fibres as thin as silk. We cooked in a tent pitched in the garden behind the mosque. I am still able to recall the copper vessels and slow fire. I remember setting up the long dining table under the plane tree. Tarami plates. White linens fluttering in the wind.

  Food was served. Fenugreek gosht. Nadir kebab. Aloobukhara korma. Goat tails. Haakh saag. Tabak maaz. Dum aloo. Rista-63. Gushtaba. Saffron pilaf in the middle. Shirmal. Rumali roti, yellow and thin like a two-day-old newspaper. No part of the tablecloth was uncovered.

  They were about to start.

  But.

  The chief cleric asked the General to beckon the ‘cook’. The cleric said: I want to have a word with the ‘cook’.

  Chef put on his military (jungle) hat and asked me to accompany him. I adjusted my black turban and buttoned up my white jacket. We walked together to the tree and stood before the table, silently, waiting. The colonel of the regiment, sitting on the left of General Sahib, said, ‘Kishen, Pir Sahib would like to ask you a question.’ The imam was sitting on the right of the General.

  Chef stood confidently, just a bit ahead of me, his hands clasped behind his back.

  The imam opened his mouth. I only want to double-check if the meat used in Rogan Josh is halal? he inquired.

  I sighed in relief. Chef reassured the imam and the other clerics that the meat used was pure halal, but he didn’t stop there. He uttered a few things, a few extra things, which I think ruined him.

  This is what he said, I hear those words even now: One hundred percent halal was used, sir, we procured the meat from a genuine Muslim shop in Lal Chowk. Many interesting dishes can be prepared with pork, sir – whether it is halal or not. But we did not use pork. Only lamb was used, sir. Personally I am not for slaughtering pigs.