On this train I feel like a man who has already expired. Unable to endure so many civilians. I don’t desire to be immortal. Old passengers leave, new ones occupy the seats. They are all the same, no difference, and I am ashamed of them, all of them. The more I witness their lives the more ashamed I feel. Ashamed of my country. Is it for them my father died? Did we lose so many of our men in the army for such useless people?
Eight people on my left are speaking at the same time, they are inebriated and discussing plans to immigrate to America; another group across the aisle prefers Australia. I have decided not to speak to them at all. If I tell them about my time in the army they will say: ‘We would like to hear stories about the heroism of our soldiers.’ These people think war is TV.
Not far from me a man and his wife are sitting. It seems they have gone without sleep for nights. He is bald and she is on the plump side. They are a slightly older couple than the honeymooning pair I encountered last night. Not a word has been exchanged between us. But they are horrible. I had to endure them when the train stopped unexpectedly an hour ago.
When we came to a halt, the man lifted the window shutter and tapped on the wife’s shoulder.
‘I am stepping down,’ he said.
‘It is a small station,’ she said.
‘Forty minutes halt.’
‘Who told you?’
He did not respond.
‘Don’t go far away.’
He wiped his shirt with his hand, and walked past other passengers, and stood by the open door. It was early in the morning, but already very hot. On the left end of the station there was a pile of dismantled army vehicles and a badly damaged MIG-21 fighter plane, with only one wing.
The platform was animated with civilians and stray dogs and white foreigners in Indian dress. Cows were chewing on the garbage inside the bins and outside the bins. The man succeeded in making eye contact with his wife from the platform. She smiled and beckoned him towards her window.
‘What station is this?’ she asked loudly. He moved very close to the shutter of her window and leaned against the horizontal bars.
‘There,’ he said, pointing his finger. ‘I can’t read the sign properly.’
He stood there sweating, and a long time passed before another word was exchanged. He unbuttoned his shirt and touched his bald head.
‘It is hot,’ she said. ‘Where is your hat?’
‘I am fine. Just fine.’
The girl selling tea and pakoras stopped before the man. She looked like a gypsy. The man ordered.
The girl produced two teas in earthen cones.
‘Should we get a plate of pakoras as well?’ the man asked.
His wife didn’t respond.
The silences were not awkward. I think this is how all married people eventually become.
The gypsy girl looked at the wife while the man transferred a cone of chai through the window. The wife returned the gaze. There were blisters on the girl’s feet, red dots in the middle, and red circles around them. She wore bangles all the way from wrists to shoulders, they chimed when she lifted her arms.
‘Pakoras, Memsahib?’ she asked.
‘No,’ the wife said. ‘No pakoras.’
‘Egg pakoras, Memsahib.’
‘No.’
‘Take it, Memsahib!’
‘Go away,’ the wife almost screamed.
The civilian man took the plate and started eating greedily.
‘Did you find out the name of the station?’ the wife asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘this is not Pokhran.’
‘Why did we have to take this train?’
‘Don’t start again,’ he said. ‘You have such a negative attitude.’
‘You started it.’
‘I don’t understand you.’
She picked up the book she was reading and opened it randomly.
‘Listen,’ the man said to his wife, ‘the lady-doctor says she can do it quickly. Nothing goes inside you.’
‘But I don’t want to get it done.’
‘Don’t worry. I will go with you. The lady-doctor says it is safer than X-ray. Ultrasound is like taking a picture only.’
‘But I really don’t want to.’
‘Think about it.’
His fingers were grubby with pakoras.
‘For you I will do anything. But not this thing,’ she said.
‘Please don’t do it if you feel like that. No one is forcing you.’
‘What if the picture isn’t right?’
‘It will be all right.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Have I ever lied to you?’
‘But how can one be sure?’
‘Because if it isn’t all right then we must find out a way to fix it. Don’t you want it to be all right?’
‘But what if it is a girl?’
‘Of course it will be a boy.’
‘You don’t like girls?’
‘I like you,’ the man said. ‘I go to work every morning because I like you. Have I done anything to show I don’t like you?’
‘I know you like me. But would you stop liking me if I don’t get this thing done?’
‘You don’t go to the lady-doctor, nothing will change between us. I assure you. But, it will make me unhappy.’
‘What if it is a girl?’
‘What can I do to make you think positive?’
‘How can you be sure?’
He took a coin from his pocket. He flipped the coin thrice, using his grubby fingers.
‘See,’ he said. ‘Three times sure. It will be a boy.’
‘Stop it. I want to read my book. Just stop it.’
‘Did I ever stop you?’ he said and moved away from her on the platform, and beckoned the gypsy girl and ordered more tea.
The girl tried to hand him two orders, but he took only one.
‘Memsahib is not having,’ he said, and spat on the platform.
He slurped loudly. She put a finger in her ear. He ate two more pakoras before the guard pressed the signal.
Civilians, I say to myself. Civilians.
And India started passing by all over again. The cows, the fertile fields, the dust. India picked up speed, started pacing in straight lines and curves to the highest mountains up north. Boulders of memories started echoing. Chug. Chug. Chug. I had thought travel would liberate me from the burden of memories. When one is neither here nor there, when there is so much space and so much sky outside the window, I had imagined time would finally liberate me. But exactly the reverse is happening.
There are two kinds of chefs in this world. Those who disturb the universe with their cooking, and those who do not dare to do so. I am of the last kind. I try to make myself invisible. Don’t get me wrong. Great satisfaction comes to me watching people praise my dishes. And yet . . . Food that draws attention to itself is not my idea of perfection.
‘Bad’ cooking, of course, draws attention, but so do dishes that are technically considered ‘good’. The ‘best’ preparation is the one that transports people elsewhere, far away from the table.
Chef Kishen
dazzled
the table. I, on the other hand, transport people to
dazzling
places. But I have never been able to cook like him. His touch was precise. As if music. He appraised fruits, vegetables, meats, with astonishment, and grasped them with humility, with reverence, very carefully as if they were the most fragile objects in the world. Before cooking he would ask: Fish, what would you like to become? Basil, where did you lose your heart? Lemon: It is not
who
you touch, but
how
you touch. Learn from big elaichi. There, there. Karayla, meri jaan, why are you so prudish? . . . Cinnamon was ‘hot’, cumin ‘cold’, nutmeg caused good erections. Exactly: 32 kinds of tarkas. ‘Garlic is a woman, Kip. Avocado, a man. Coconut, a hijra . . . Chilies are South American. Coffee, Arabian. “Curry powder” is a British invention. There is no such thing as
Indian
food, Kip. But there are
Indian methods
(Punjabi-Kashmiri-Tamil-Goan-Bengali-Hyderabadi). Allow a dialogue between
our
methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world. Japan, Italy, Afghanistan. Make something new. Channa goes well with artichokes. Rajmah with brie and parsley. Don’t get stuck inside nationalities.’ I would watch the movement of his hands for hours on end. Once the materials stripped themselves bare, Chef mixed them with all that he remembered, and all that he had forgotten. Sometimes he would contradict himself, and that was the toughest thing to master in the kitchen.
The day I discovered I had cancer something happened to my hands. They looked exactly the same, the same shape, but I tore a chapatti a little differently, and I picked up fruits from the bowl differently, gazed at them a little longer than I used to. Even the glass of water didn’t get lifted the usual way. It appeared as if time had expanded and was distorting into patterns I didn’t know. I felt the heat of a spoon, its coldness. I became that coldness.
Before he left by bus to the glacier, Kishen asked me to take
care
of the nurse in the hospital. How was I to take
care
of her? She had already said no to my advances, and I felt humiliated. But our next meeting was inevitable. Eight days after Chef’s departure I noticed a dense fog building up outside. Standing by the window, peeling an onion, I felt an immense need to see her. It was as if a garden had grown inside me. I ordered my assistant to take over, and walked down the hill to the hospital.
Once it was a mosque and the hospital now had a green dome. It was a modest but magical-looking place. When I arrived she was busy in the ward, and asked me to wait outside in the hall.
There I waited half an hour, my gaze fixed on the floor. The black and white square tiles looked freshly mopped, not a single particle of dust on them. At last she emerged. Along came the smell of penicillin and talcum powder. Afternoon, I said. She seized my arm. A current passed through me.
‘Can you visit me this evening?’
‘Your home?’ I asked.
She nodded.
‘Right now I am in a hurry,’ she said.
There was a small mole on the left side of her nose as if a seed of black cardamom. I felt like touching the mole, but there was no time. A patient cried
sister, sister
. The nurse consulted her wristwatch. Well, she said. Later, I said, and we began walking in opposite directions.
The Rogan Josh I prepared that day was one of my best. My assistant asked many questions about
origins
and
authenticity
and I found myself responding like Chef Kishen. Major, this tastes of heaven, he said. Good, I said. Now you take your break. Watching him disappear through the kitchen door I thought of a boat I had seen in the Dal Lake – it was called
heevan
. The painter had misspelled ‘heaven’ as ‘heevan’ and for a brief second I felt as if God had misspelled my fate in more or less the same way. I have a great talent to ruin things when they start shaping up. But that day, when the fog lifted, I was on top of the world, and dark thoughts could not win the tug of war. General Sahib was not supposed to eat at home in the evening. He was to dine at the Alpha Officers’ Mess with commissioned officers and their wives. It was my day off. I was ready to transfer the lamb to the tiffin-carrier when Sahib’s ADC made an entry, parting the curtains.
‘Kip, who are you cooking the Rogan Josh for?’
‘Oh,’ I said cautiously, ‘for tomorrow, sir.’
‘Sahib prefers fresh food.’
‘My mistake, sir. It will not happen again.’
Then he was unusually nice to me.
‘Sahib often praises your preparations. The subzi you made a few days ago was most karari, and piyaz with fish tikka were exemplary. Shabash! Well done!’ he said, and patted me on the back.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Also,’ he said, ‘I am very impressed you are bringing knowledge from other officers’ kitchens to Gen Sahib’s residence.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He was the first officer (and dancer) to have stepped in the kitchen, ever, in my presence. His rank was that of a captain.
‘Kip,’ he said, ‘this evening the General would like to reward you and other staff members, too, for all the good work and for maintaining highest standards.’
‘Sir.’
‘Before the function begins this evening in the Officers’ Mess, General Kumar will have rum with the entire staff on the lawns of the Mess.’
‘Rum, sir?’
‘Everyone must attend. Seventeen-twenty hours, sharp. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now make me a quick nimbu-pani.’
Rum with the General on the lawns of the Officers’ Mess was a rare honor for us, the staff members. I was doubly excited. But this new development cut into the time I could spend at the nurse’s quarter. I did not want to hurry her. I did not want to talk about work at all, or brag about the rare honor I was about to receive from Sahib.
Evening came and I polished my shoes and took longer than usual to tie my turban in front of the mirror. I wore my blue shirt and black pants and felt slightly uncomfortable because the clothes were just like new. She lived not far from the Dal Lake. On the way to her house I kept thinking about how my body felt in my clothes. I kept delaying. At the side of the lake, I looked at the water, the waves, and for a brief moment sat on a rock and when I turned I noticed a man fishing. Salaam, he said, and I recall my response was extremely slow.