Home Is Where
the Heart Is
By Bapsi Sidhwa
Houston, TX
If, as it is said: ‘Home
is where the heart it,’ it is equally true
that the ‘heart is wherever home is.’
I have ‘set up home’ in far flung
areas of the world, and my travel weary heart
has obligingly accommodated itself to the new
environment and lodged itself in it. It has not
been easy to be wrenched by the roots and find
the security and solace of family and friends
that goes to make a house a home – not to
mention the writer’s nook that serves the
muse. As a woman writer I find that everything
to do with the home and family has priority over
my writing.
The nerve center of every home I’ve set
up is the kitchen. Once I have the necessary pans,
patilis and dals in place, the fragrance of frying
onions and massalas permeates the rooms and anoints
them with comforting familiarity.
Of course, I spent the largest chunk of my life
in Lahore, where the servants facilitated the
process of cooking and entertaining. All I needed
to do was to decide on the menu, buy sundry items,
bring out the silver and the food would miraculously
turn up on the long table in our dining room to
feed the hordes.
If I close my eyes I can conjure up the auspicious-occasion
Parsee fare. On Navroze, family birthdays and
anniversaries, the yogurt is sweetened and set
in round glass dishes the night before to attain
a firm consistency and allow the thick skin of
clotted cream to form on it. It is strewn with
rose-petals before serving. Deep silver dishes
heaped with plain white rice and the joyous-occasion
yellow dal - the combination known as dhan-dar
- forms the main course. The aroma from thick
slices of fried fish and exotic spices scents
the air, whetting appetites.
Emptied dishes are promptly replenished by our
bearded and harried cook, whose portly torso is
mummified in a white apron that reaches to his
knees. Our near-sighted ayah often stands by with
a fly-flapper, shooing away the flies before they
can land on the food. Occasionally, one hears
the satisfying thwack of a fly swatted with an
accuracy that, considering Ayha’s poor eyesight,
must be purely intuitive. This feat is always
applauded with shabashes from the feasters.
Dessert comprises of flat dishes of sweet vermicelli
browned in ghee and sprinkled with fried raisins
and almonds, and mounds of seasonal fruit - mangoes,
chickoos, blood-oranges, grapes – that are
moved from obscure positions to center stage.
My mother’s grumpy old cook, Kalay Khan,
renowned the length and breath of Lahore for his
culinary prowess with intricate Parsee dishes
like Dhansak and sheeps-trotters, once memorably
grumbled: “Shoar macha-diya: ’Bara
din aya! bara din aya!’ or khatay kya hain?
Ubley huay chawal or phiki dal! [“They announce:
It’s a big day! A big day!’ and what
do they eat? Boiled rice and insipid dal!”]
But the wisdom of my shrewd female Parsee ancestors
in serving up such plain fare as boiled rice and
soupy dal at auspicious gathering was brought
home to me in all its sagacity only when I moved
to the United States – and discovered I
could cook up the required feast in under twenty
minutes without feeling too drained to enjoy the
company. How much effort does it require to stir
a teaspoon of turmeric into two cups of red-lentil
soaked in a pan water? The dal cooks in less than
half an hour. If I’m in the mood to indulge
my guests, and I have the time, I sprinkle the
dal with a beghar of browned onion, garlic and
whole cumin. Boiled rice served in the cook-pot
and a container of yogurt transferred to a dish
and sprinkled with sugar, completes the fare.
As fate would have it, I’ve set up home,
after home, after home in the United States: Eighteen
at the last count. We from the subcontinent are
accustomed to being with people, and we do not
feel at home in our houses unless we can invite
to it the grace bequeathed it by the warm bodies
of family and friends. And if friends bring their
friends and the gathering grows, I, like my fore-mothers,
dilute the dal with more water.
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