My younger sister diligently shared with her siblings a post showing the front and back of an Aadhar card and the photograph of a possible domestic, posed on a rooftop.
On query, it was confirmed that the post pertained to a job seeker for a twenty-four-hour position as a cook or as a helper.
Two thoughts went through my mind. The first is the perpetual availability of help when there is no vacancy. I know there is a law regarding this but am too old to scratch my head to recall it. Secondly, it made me stop to refresh my knowledge of my cook.
My cook came to us through another man who had worked for us for 12 years in the past. The man has a domineering personality and through his rough treatment of part-time help has established himself as a fearful grunch and this is the main reason for his recent reemployment, basically, to frighten away the unwanted importunate. (He has been with us for 6 years except for a year in between when he went away for his father’s treatment).
Seeing only women around (daughter and self, (son-in-law frequenting the parks for his walks or the bed or office) our house (in the time we had let our cook go away to tend to his father) had begun to be “haunted” by encroachers, scoundrels and sophisticated beggars. The colony is very well guarded but opaque for genuine job seekers and porous for frequent and habitual offenders who rotate from house to house in their unquenchable thirst for food, mischief creation exercised with full abandon within a short time of joining.
This is where our cook (with us for almost 6 years) fits into my story.
Let me revert to my previous thought which I had wanted to share. Cook. Ha! He mostly cooks by guesswork trusting that throwing as many spices into the cooking pot as possible will resolve the necessity of following a step-by-step recipe.
From time to time one of us objects then I get down to repeating and imposing step-by-step recipes. It works sometimes, but often he will skip a step or forget an ingredient. Youtube has been a blessing. Cooking from YouTube he loves. It’s easy as there are pictures and videos and, even if it is in English, he can assume the spoonful missed was garam masala or Kitchen King (which is a banned item for purchase but somehow sneaks onto our kitchen shelves mysteriously)!
An example of orally given recipes, given and cooked by him innumerable times is as follows: Last night I was alone for dinner. I asked him to cook me some upma. At 8pm, I came to the table to see a concoction surprisingly yellow and yet auspiciously smelling like halwa. On checking, he confirmed he had forgotten to cook the suji in water and had only roasted it. Yes. He had added turmeric. I had the option of yelling and making a fuss. Being of wiser years, I ate the altogether new dish.
