When did you start cooking?
I am not talking about the day when your ‘Sunny-side’ finally came up right. But when did you take that spatula in your hands for the very first time?
Was that on a summer vacation spent at your grandmother’s? Or an evening when your younger sibling got hungry and your parents were late from work?
I’m pretty sure that the first time you held it was not the day you held it right. It might have been a mess. A mess that you remembered every time you held it afterwards.
I remember learning to make tea for the first time. I was 9 years old.
It was a summer vacation. I remember looking at how my mother turned down the burner to low flame and then to high flame after putting the tea dust. In our kitchen, my mother boiled the milk and tea separately and mixed them according to need. On some occasions, she would also sprinkle a pinch of cardamom in the end.
The smell of cardamom in the tea was not something that was put in for the sake of taste alone. It was a pinch of love.
She would take the rounded spice box from the highest ceiling of the cupboard on the left side of the kitchen. When the spice box is opened, the full house which would be in the usual nap after lunch gets into its charm. The mixed and, yet discernible smell of each of the spices in that round box would go around and call us all to assemble in the kitchen.
The Classy-Cinnamon. The Graceful-Clove. The Nutmeg, who is very choosy and won’t make an appearance unless a Biriyani is being made. And finally, the queen, Cardamom.
My mother would carefully take two of the most beautiful cardamoms from the box and put them in the mortar made of stone and crush them with three hard smashes with the pestle. That is it.
She would then sprinkle it on top of the black tea that is made and mix the milk and add the sugar.
If there are guests, we would take out our white coloured cups with saucers. Otherwise, it is just any cup. Any shape, size and colour.
Everything is okay if there is tea. We would all go calm and sometimes talkative.
The talks over tea are another thing.
You would talk only of good things when tea is served and when tea is served right.
Good things. Good days.
This memoir and illustration are by Anupam Aysha. She is a Lawyer based in Kozhikode, Kerala. She is the Co-founder and Editor of The Marinade Journal.
The Marinade Journal 
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