Kamal's Favourite Meal

Winter morning

In Kamal’s home, the day begins with the lighting of the chulha — a traditional stove made of clay and brick — that sits on the floor at one end of his mother’s kitchen. Tucking the pallu¹ of her sari² in at the waist, his mother encourages the firewood to catch flames with lit stems of dried toor dal³ plants. The heat from the stove spreads slowly across the room, and by the time Kamal and his sister have their morning chai,⁴ it will be quite warm. Mist still sits heavy on the wheatfields outside but homes across the village are stirring awake.

For the moment, Kamal sleeps cosily under heavy blankets in an inner room. The hut’s mud walls keep most of the winter cold out; however, the deep cling-clanging of cow bells float through and into his dream. Kamal keeps his eyes tightly shut, trying hard to stay in his dream. It was a wonderful one. He was picking channa leaves⁵ (he knew exactly where to find the best ones) for his mother who was waiting to cook his favourite dish. He just wanted to get to the part where his mouth would be filled with its delicious taste! But it was no use. The clatter of pots and pans being moved around in the next room accompanied by the impatient sounds of the calves jostling one another in the back garden signals that the day has begun. Unable to lie still any longer, he hops out of bed to start his chores. As he herds the cows to their field, a yellow-orange sunrise breaks in the sky above him and over the emerald hills of Gadiolari,⁶ in Madhya Pradesh, India.

Later in the morning, their chores done, Kamal and his sister are washed and dressed for school in neat, blue uniforms. Kamal remembers that he has a big game of gilli danda⁷ that afternoon. His team would be playing against the team from the neighbouring village. He fills his pocket with roasted gram⁸ — his favourite post-school snack. He would share it with his close friends, Tarun and Rahul, but he hopes that they bring their own snacks as well. He runs out of the house, past the porch where his mother is braiding his sister’s long, dark hair into two neat plaits for school. His sister calls out for him to wait so they can walk together but he pretends not to hear. If he cuts through Tarang bhaiyya’s⁹ field, school is only a short walk away.

The field lies empty for now, its flat, fallow earth waiting for the next crops to be sown. In the neighbouring fields, Kamal can see bundles of wheat straw waiting to be carried into storage. They would serve as fodder for cattle through the season. Absentmindedly, he picks up a stick to draw trails in the dry mud, tapping the ground here and there, as his mother had taught him, to warn snakes of his approach. But Kamal knows that he’s unlikely to encounter any exciting creatures at this time of day. A flock of sparrows scatter in a cloud of alarm at his approach but he barely notices them. The family dog runs after them playfully. As he does every day, he trots behind Kamal until they reach the school gates. Then he goes off on his own adventures.

School and lunch

The school itself is a small building surrounded by large open grounds for the children to run around and play. A peepal tree stands in the far corner, its branches spread out wide, bearing hundreds of leaves that rustle in the slightest breeze. It offers students a relaxing, shaded corner on hot days. Kamal can see its leafy crown from the window of his classroom; he’s spent many an afternoon daydreaming as he stared into its green leaves. At the centre of the compound is a tall flagstaff on which the Indian national flag is hoisted on national holidays. Their daily school assemblies are also held in front of this flagstaff before the students file into their classes. In Kamal’s opinion, history was the only subject worth listening to because he found the stories exciting.

Around mid-morning, Kamal’s tummy rumbles, his thoughts stray from the lesson to the possibilities of lunch. He can tell that the rasoiyya¹⁰ have arrived and are already cooking the midday meal in the tiny kitchen next door. The scent of whole spices tempering in oil wafts into their classroom, followed by ginger-garlic paste, which always stirs Kamal’s appetite. He knows it’s nearly lunchtime when he can smell the starch of the rice that’s being cooked. He could picture a large pot of it quietly bubbling away on the fire — a much bigger one than the one in his mother’s kitchen. Lunch is probably going to be lentil stew and rice. Most likely with a vegetable dish to go with it. What Kamal would really like is beautifully puffed up hot pooris¹¹ but those are usually served on special occasions. Kamal is still hopeful that they’ll be served crispy poppadums¹² to go with the rice.

At the clanging of the lunch bell, the children transform their classroom into a lunchroom by rolling out long mats on the floor, and pulling out stainless steel plates and glasses. Kamal sits cross-legged along with the rest of his school as the hot midday meal is served. Today’s plate is, as Kamal had predicted, rice and lentils with a side of carrot sabji.¹³ The last bell of the day rings a few hours after lunch. It’s met with a lot of clattering and chattering as about a hundred students noisily leave the building. Six of them, including Kamal, Tarun and Rahul, make their way to the bus stop to get to the neighbouring village for the big gilli danda showdown! They have about a 30-minute journey ahead of them. Snacks are brought out and passed between seats. Besides Kamal’s roasted gram snack, they enjoy charoli ke laddu,¹⁴ rotis¹⁵ and roasted groundnuts. Tarun (who privately thought that he had the best technique in the team) demonstrates the ideal batting angles to Meghana and Priya who’re only half-listening.

The match

Kamal turns to the window, letting the wind wash over his face. He has a familiar anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach and is trying to stop it in its tracks. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on something else. Something solid that he can count on. Like dinner. He knew that no matter what happened at the match, at around 7.30 or 8 that night, he would be at home, in their warm kitchen. His mother would probably be around the chulha, focused on ensuring that everything is cooked in the right order. What would he like for dinner? Rice with a side of sautéed amaranthus, taro¹⁶ root prepared in that crispy way he likes and … was it the right season for mushrooms? A bit of potato fry and channa leaves wouldn’t be unwelcome either! He knows that his dinner may not have the same mix of veggies but was sure that his mother (who was an excellent cook) would serve up something equally diverse. He draws comfort from the thought of a tasty dinner.

Eventually, they arrive at the other village’s school grounds where the match is to be played. Players from each team gather behind their captains for the coin toss. A small, scattered group of onlookers cheer intermittently. The other team wins the toss and announces that they will bat first. A little hole is dug in the ground, the gilli balanced across it and a circle drawn around it. The first player is a tall girl, her brow is furrowed with determination. She grasps the danda firmly and with a quick flick of her wrists, lands a precisely aimed shot that has the gilli jumping high in the air. Another strong stroke of the danda sends it far across the field. And so, it begins!

The fielding, Gadiolari team manages to get two of the other team’s players ‘out’ in the first innings. They have a score of 90 to chase in the second half. It is a nail-biting afternoon filled with some spectacular shots, almost-dropped catches, and a few actually-dropped catches. Between keeping an eye on the other team to make sure they don’t cheat and racing around to catch the gilli from his fielding position, Kamal doesn’t have a moment to feel nervous again. So, when he finally walks up to the centre to take his turn with the danda under the late afternoon sun, he is clear-headed and determined. His first few strokes send the gilli faaar across the field. “…six, seven, eight…” they count the runs according to the length of the danda “…eleven. Eleven runs!”

The school garden

Between cheers and pats on the back, Kamal, feels a gust of cool wind sweep past. An afternoon of running and playing has them sweating, and the refreshing breeze, however brief, is very welcome. He glances at the direction it came from and catches a quick glimpse of a kitchen garden. He’s hustled back to the game before he can be sure. The match ends with Kamal’s team winning by two runs! In a generous display of sportsmanship, the host team invites them to the jujube¹⁷ tree in the back garden to have their pick of the ripening fruits. They turn the corner at a tamarind tree to step into a space filled with saplings and trees! Kamal had never imagined that a school garden could look like this. It had just been watered, so the air is cool and filled with the pleasant scent of wet earth. Two tall jujube trees stand by the wall which offers the perfect perch to pick the fruit from. Tendu (Indian forest persimmon) trees stand alongside, they look young and it will be a while before they produce fruit. Most of the space is taken up by the kitchen garden. Sitting on the wall by the jujube trees, munching on the fruit, Kamal looks at the landscape outside the school. Beyond the wall, he sees vast uniformly arranged fields and toward the horizon, a few dense clumps of trees.

He turns his attention back to the garden and tries to identify as many plants as possible. Neat rows of spinach, amaranthus, cabbage … is that taro? Yum! Something that could be barbati (long beans) growing on supports. He recognises rows of pumpkin and cucumber intercropped between the leafy vegetables, at least one of which is mustard greens. The richly coloured reddish-purple Amaranthus or lal saag is unmistakable. Kamal can tell that they would be incredibly tasty when lightly sautéed in a kadai.¹⁸ A lone guava tree stands in the midst of this richly diverse spread. Sparrows twitter noisily as they fly around, a koel perched on one of the topmost branches of a mango tree sounds its musical but mournful call every now and then. Kamal turns to pick some more jujube fruit to take home for his dadi¹⁹ and tries to imagine his own school with this garden.

Dinner at home

Having gone straight from the bus stop to his chores, he is dead on his feet that evening. Once he washed up, he makes his way to the kitchen, his tummy prickling with hunger. He pauses at his dadi’s charpai²⁰ to empty his pockets of the jujubes he had collected for her. Jujube trees often grow wild along paths around the village, and she had once told him that, as a child, she couldn’t resist picking a few every time she passed them. The kitchen is exactly as he expected it to be. His mum hovers around the chulha, his sister is doing her homework, and the warm room is filling up with the smells of dinner. His mum is cooking channa leaves! There is also cooked and seasoned pumpkin (which was harvested from the plant that climbs onto the roof of their house), sauteed lal saag and rotis hot off the fire. Kamal didn’t know this yet, but his mother had made a rice kheer²¹ to enjoy at the end of the meal.

Looking down at his plate, he remembers the school garden he saw this afternoon and fleetingly wonders if a plan could be hatched to have one in their own school. It would be quite exciting to see his lunch plate resemble tonight’s dinner!

Notes and references