Cooked a rich mutton korma and onion raita this afternoon as the sky outside changed tapestry from turquoise to dense charcoal. My dream project is to do a cookbook with hand me down Sunday mutton recipes with drop dead delicious photographs and personal anecdotes of Sunday’s the way they were once. When large, unwieldy joint families broke bread together on sprawling tables, the air rife with the heady aromas of freshly cooked mutton just off the gas. The smoke still lingering in the air. Where longing stares were exchanged across each other and young, bashful bahus stole last minute glances at their men, in moustaches and full sleeve cotton kurtas as they spoke of a world outside. Where gurgling little children helped set the table, their wrists brushing past dominating matriarchs who ordered them around. The afternoon light mellow. Moody. Where people talked. Touched. Where the scent of pure desi ghee flirted whimsically with the robustness of hand ground garam masala. Where the fire of the kitchen added a rare light to myriad private lives. Where the mutton was served in silver bowls and savoured long after. Being a lover of chicken personally, I love cooking mutton. The way it represents a complex love making ritual. The way everything takes its own time. The way my fingers smell. The way you can’t wash off the turmeric or the way the stench of onions sticks to your skin like droplets of moistness. The way you watch over the dish. Like the early stages of intimacy. When you are sure of yourself, but can’t seem to surrender. Something so sensuous, so imminently alive when you turn the pieces over, like a desperate lover reimagining the tumultuous abandon of last night. I feel listless cooking mutton. I take a deep breath, placing some of the curry on the tip of my tongue. Shuddering in slow waves. There’s nothing tame about this ritual. Mutton, hot blooded, haughty, plays with one’s senses. There is pulling away just as there is giving in. There is succour just as there is silence. There is a right of passage. Like darkness before dawn
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