Pappa knows he makes the best food.
Because he enjoys his own cooking the most.
This you can tell from his afternoon nap that follows a hearty lunch that he prepared.
Art by Rini A Joseph
Pappa knows he makes the best food.
Because he enjoys his own cooking the most.
This you can tell from his afternoon nap that follows a hearty lunch that he prepared.
Pappa’s meen curry begins and ends at the dinner table.
Here he starts off the preparation by assembling his main ingredients.
Small onions, big onions, garlic, chilli, meen puli(“fish tamarind”), Malabar tamarind, and most importantly matthi – sardines. He sits down, comfortably, stage set for his favourite act.
As he carefully slices, dices and cleans the vegetables and fish, he tells stories from his childhood – elaborate and animated retellings of adventures composed of climbing trees, snakes falling from the sky and hilarious failed fishing expeditions. Despite being a descendant of fisherfolk, Pappa reminds me that he was not very good at fishing. The sea was nonetheless his most familiar ecosystem, having been born in Kollam (“Quilon”, he insists) and later growing up along the coastal belt of Kerala. Fish was a staple food item in his household growing up. He inherited his meen curry recipe from his mother, my Ammammachi.
I think Pappa and I are a lot alike. He was an artist too. He just didn’t have the suitable circumstances to nurture his art. I grew up watching him work with carpentry tools, transforming stray pieces of wood into gorgeous bible stands, candle-stands, miniatures and even little puzzles. A lot of things that come naturally to me, especially with creativity and skill, was passed on to me from Pappa. I can make Pappa’s meen curry now. I have now inherited the recipe from him.
This softness, my eldest sister Rani chechi reminds, was not the version of Pappa she or Ruby chechi, my second sister, grew up with. By the time I was born, when he was 45 years old, perhaps he was less angry with the world he so evidently did not fit into. The world that chided him for not being man enough – for not being the patriarch, for not chasing the masculine persistence of career, success and money, for not being the breadwinner of the family. As my Pappa, he embodied the role of the nurturer, the nourisher and the storyteller.
“Pappa, did you enjoy cooking for us, when we were growing up?”
“Of course! I cherished the sight of my daughters eating with delight the food I cooked for them!“
Rini Alphonsa Joseph
Rini is multi disciplinary artist who works with different media, but primarily paintings, illustrations, writing and ceramics. She is based in Goa, and has built a practice from the ground up with the available resources. The community helped her garner and polish her skills in a way that academia couldn't. Her work is quite scattered albeit a testimony to Rini's versatility, because her practice goes where the money is, to sustain her life and my art. She is a private art tutor for young children and it has been her primary source of inspiration as well as income for the last two years. Her art works are mostly introspective and reflective, laying light on everyday human emotions, existence and mental well being, all garnished with loads of melancholy. There are also art that navigate away from these themes and explore family, nature, angst and ancestry.
