Chef

‘One more time,’ she said.

‘This one goes slowly,’ I said.

Daaah Daaah Da Daaah It Vit

Daaah Daaah Da Daaah It Vit

‘More,’ she said.

‘The tune is almost a military march,’ I said.

TUH-dee TUH-dee TA-deeee TA-deeee

TUH-dee TUH-dee TA-deeee TA-deeee

‘This sounds Turkish to me,’ she said. ‘There is no such thing. In German tradition there is no such thing.’

‘But, I have heard the music,’ I said.

My hands moved up in the air, then down and up again. I found myself conducting – just like Chef Kishen had done on the glacier – as I sang or tried to sing that music.

Da Da Da Da

Da Da Da Da

Da Da Da Da

Deee da Daaa

‘The Ninth.’ She jumped from her seat.

‘The Ninth?’

‘Beethoven,’ she said.

‘Bay-toh-behn?’

‘Beethoven,’ she said.

‘Beethoven.’

‘Yes.’

‘He wrote that music just like that?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It took him thirty years to write it. He made many errors. But, finally he found perfection.’

She gave me a headset and I listened to the complete Ninth at the booth. She told me where to buy works by Beethoven.

‘But I am only interested in the Ninth,’ I answered.

‘Maybe.’

She gave me a book, so I read it. The man was completely deaf when he wrote that piece of music. Tuh-dee Tuh-dee Ta-deeee Ta-deeee. I simply could not believe it. It is like a cook who can’t smell or taste trying to create a new dish to make millions of people happy. Tuh-dee Tuh-dee Ta-deeee Ta-deeee. This has stayed with me all these years. The Ninth has stayed. It is not just music. It is real. My whole wretched life is embedded in it. And I do not care if it comes from Germany. I am dying, but I have heard the music. My fear, my fury, my joy, my melancholy – everything is embedded in this piece. The Ninth is real. It penetrates my body like smells, like food. And yet: it is solid and massive like a glacier. Shifting. Sliding. Melting. Then becoming air. When I listen to this music so many places penetrate me. So many times. So many sounds. Voices. The voices do a tamasha, and I am able to say it for the first time. The Ninth is real. It is the kiss, the most powerful and delicate kissforthewholeworld.

Da Da Da Da

Da Da Da Da

Da Da Da Da

Deee da Daaa

22

In November General Sahib was approved by Delhi to become the next Governor of Kashmir. Sahib was a good choice for the post. He was the ‘Hero of Kargil’ and the ‘Hero of Siachen Glacier’. The State needed urgently a gentleman-soldier at the very top to restore order. Sahib arranged to take me (and the gardener Agha) along to the Raj Bhavan, his new residence in Srinagar. It was a rare honor. Kishen would have been proud to see me occupy the highest kitchen in Kashmir.

On the night of his appointment General Kumar delivered a speech on radio and TV.

My fellow Indians,

  This troubled and beautiful land is ready for peace. Our task is not going to be easy, many challenges lie ahead, but together we will find a solution. In my opinion the first thing we must tackle is the question of governance and power. How will I, as your administrator, use power? Let me reassure you that I will act in an enlightened, just, and humane way. I will lead by reason and cooperation and set an example not just for the poor countries, but also for the rich… Thomas Jefferson once said, let me quote: ‘The less power we use the greater it will be.’ I convey my warm greetings to all of you and wish you peace and prosperity. Jai Hind.

This speech made a great impression on me. Those first few days I worked even harder to please Gen Sahib. One day he asked me especially to cater the wedding banquet for the preceding Governor’s daughter. Her name was Bina. The girl was stu

More than anything else I remember the smell of wood inside the Raj Bhavan. The richly decorated papier-mâché ceilings. The fifty-five rooms. Dimly lit corridors. Red curtains. Crystal chandeliers. It was easy to get lost in the labyrinths of the building. The interiors were done entirely in walnut and deodar and rose, and the kitchen was large, airy, always filled with light. From the west window it was possible to see the ruins of the Mughal garden on the slopes of the mountain, also General Sahib’s old residence.

Bina’s tourist brochure was an elegant piece of work, and whenever I try to describe that residence I bring it to mind. For me describing buildings is harder than detecting the ingredients in an exotic dish and certainly more difficult than describing human faces. People hide their true selves behind a face, but buildings hide even more. The Raj Bhavan, Bina had written, is perched on the beautiful Zabarwan hill and quivers with the fragrance of crocuses, and irises, and narcissi. The steep road to the compound is lined by majestic plane trees (also known as bouin or chenar). The mansion commands a stu

The banquet, I must say, was my best accomplishment to this date. We had a pre-banquet di

Bina took me aside and said if I could give the banquet a paisley theme she would do anything for me. I did not know what paisley was, and she told me that it was the pattern on the blouse she was wearing. You mean that tear-shaped thing? I asked. It is also a comma, she said. It can be seen as a mango. It can be many things. Touch it, she said. You mean you want me to touch your blouse? Yes, she said. Is this silk? I asked. It was very soft. She said it was different from the silk people bought in showrooms. This is called peace silk. This silk is made without killing the silkworms.

In the kitchen I thought about paisley for a long time, and thanks to Bina I finally found out the name for the embroidery I had seen on Irem’s pheran. Her pheran had paisley all over, not just on the borders.

The ruins of the Mughal garden, as I said before, were visible from the kitchen window, and they, too, for some unknown reason (in my mind) became associated with paisley. Sometimes wild animals appeared in the upper terraces and made strange sounds. While cooking I would ask, How is it possible for such beauty and such extreme forms of cruelty to co-exist? I would think about the beauty of the gardens in Kashmir and the Mughals who had built them. The Emperors were such learned men, scholars they were, they kept journals and ate good food. They took cuisine to perfection. They took architecture to perfection. They built the Taj, and yet how cruel they were. Not just cruel to others, but son to father, and brother to brother. How could these two things co-exist in the same person, in the same kingdom, and I felt there must be something wrong about Chef Muller’s theory. Muller had told Kishen that it was possible to identify the qualities of a person from what they ate. How can people who eat the finest delicacies commit the most horrible crimes? I would ask myself.