Chef

During the war we all did u

‘Kip, no need to stir sugar.’

‘Sir.’

‘You may leave.’

‘Goodnight, sir.’

Back in the kitchen I tried to conjure up the course of events that must have happened. The CO of the regiment must have sifted through Kishen’s belongings after the suicide attempt, then handed the journal to the Intelligence Branch and the intelligence-wallahs dispatched it to Gen Sahib via a senior officer.

Standing in Sahib’s room I kept hearing an echo of Chef Kishen’s voice. I had to do something. I was afraid, but I had to do something. ‘If you see this journal in the wrong place, destroy it, Kirpal.’

This is the detail. Two days later the journal has still not left Sahib’s table. I enter Sahib’s room in the afternoon after his departure. I am about to pick up the thing when I hear voices. Ayah and Rubiya in the corridor. What if they discover me in the room? But. The voices recede. Soon ayah is in the bathroom, Rubiya starts playing barefoot in the garden with her dog. I am still in Gen Sahib’s bedroom, standing by the table. I pick up the confidential files and the journal, rush to the warm living room.

That evening the General based on the report from ayah scolds and punishes Rubiya for having burned to ashes his important documents. That’s the limit, he says. You’ve burned my top-secret documents. She cries. She protests. But, Papa, she says, I didn’t do it. Papa doesn’t believe her. Ayah doesn’t believe her either. Sahib, here is the only half-burned page from those files, says the ayah. The page flew out of the fireplace, says the ayah. Papa, I didn’t do it. No, Papa. The girl is losing her faith in the world. I didn’t realize this thing then; now I know better.

I have never been able to pardon myself for having given the girl so many tears, so much anguish. Ever since that moment I have felt a different person. Again and again I go back to that moment. I see myself rushing to the living room with the files and the journal in my hand. Through the window I make sure Rubiya is playing in the garden outside, her dog is panting, going round in circles. I make sure I hear the sound of water in the bathroom, a woman is taking her bath in there. I am in front of the fireplace. Waves of heat hit my face. I shake, I hesitate, I sense the presence of the dead woman in the painting, her ghostly gaze. I change my mind. But my mind is made up. I let the things in my hands go. Little tongues of fire start licking the pages. Then the crackle, the sparks, the roar.

The only item I could not throw into the flames was the journal. Later in my room I opened the journal, not to judge anyone, but to simply find out why Kishen wanted to kill himself. What kind of information, scribbled inside the journal, was sensitive enough to cause its relocation to Sahib’s room?

It is a little thing – seven inches by five inches – no more than two hundred pages. In Delhi, for a long time, I kept it under lock and key, but as I was setting out on this journey I picked it up and brought it with me. It is now with me on this train. The first time I tried to read it (in the General’s kitchen) was extremely difficult. Chef wrote the entries very tightly, in bad handwriting, and in two languages, Hindi and Punjabi.

The first few pages are recipes of simple salads – somewhat exotic, but perfectly suitable for Indian taste buds:

Tomato and Feta Cheese Salad

900g tomatoes

200g feta cheese

120ml olive oil

12 black olives

freshly ground pepper

Serves 4

In bold letters he emphasizes: Black olives are a must, not green, not sun-dried black olives, but juicy black olives.

The next few pages are filled with complaints about the absence of olives in Indian cooking. How hard it is to find this thing in Indian stores, and the troubles he had to go through to acquire olives. He ends a page with an invention of a new olive side dish, the olive raita. He ends the next page with another invention: mirchi (green caye

The French embassy-wallahs told me about a master chef, Batel or Patel his name was, and this man killed himself because he could not deliver the perfect meal. I bow before the master. I can never bring myself to do that.

Right in the middle of the journal, he talks more about his apprenticeship at five-star hotels and foreign embassies in Delhi. Of all the embassies, he received his warmest welcome from the German embassy. He writes about Chef Muller. Chef Muller introduced him not only to German cuisine, but also to music. This music I listen to when I am alone, he writes. In the kitchen I hear this music when cooking. I ca

Chef’s life and work are fused together; it is difficult to separate them at least in the notebook. I had expected to see more sketches. But there are only three dirty pictures. A naked woman is shoving a Cadbury’s chocolate bar inside her sex. A man is balancing an orange on his erect lingam. His penis is coated with ‘kamasutra powder’ – the recipe is scribbled on the margin. Otherwise the pages look surprisingly clean. Only five or six have grease on them.