Basil - Be my guest: reflections on food, community and the meaning of generosity

Also by Priya Basil

Strangers on the 16:02
The Obscure Logic of the Heart
Ishq and Mushq

First published in Great Britain and Canada in 2019
by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

Distributed in Canada by Publishers Group Canada

canongate.co.uk

This digital edition first published in 2019 by Canongate Books

Copyright Priya Basil, 2019

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Permissions credits TK

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78689 849 4
eISBN 978 1 78689 850 0

Contents

TO BERLIN

W e begin as guests, every single one of us. Helpless little creatures whose every need must be attended to, who for a long time can give nothing or very little back, yet who in the usual run of things nevertheless insinuate ourselves deep into the lives of our carers and take up permanent residence in their hearts.

Our early dependence is indulged in the expectation that we, in turn, will become dependable. Maybe reaching adulthood really means learning to be more host than guest: to take care more than, or at least as much as, to be taken care of. Implicit in this outlook, it seems to me, is still an assumption that each person will, eventually, become a parent the ultimate role, at least in cultures where the nuclear family is considered the foundation of society. A role I decided to forego. A choice that left me questioning what my part can be in the life-play of hospitality.

Whether you have your own kids or not, its hard to avoid the general shift from guest to host, which is the hallmark of maturity. This switch is perhaps most challenging in relation to our parents, from whom we cant help forever expecting certain protections and ministrations.

Nobody in the world welcomes us quite like our parents do. The reception, if were lucky, is a simultaneous cosseting and taking for granted. An experience thats, at best, comforting and exasperating in equal measure, unique in its loaded history of give and take, its private parameters of permission and expectation. Mothers, of course, host us as no one else can in their bodies. A nine-month gestation. Guest-ation?

THATS NOT ENOUGH! I stare into the brimming pot of kadhi, a creamy curry made with gram flour and yoghurt.

My mother ignores me, goes on stirring the turmeric-tinged sauce.

I could eat that all on my own for breakfast! Im aghast at the prospect of running short of one of my favourite dishes in the world. Give me a ladleful of this atop a mound of freshly boiled rice and I will take it whatever the hour, over whatever else is on offer. There have been times when Ive eaten kadhi at every meal for days on end. Why on earth has my mother made so little?

Eyes bigger than stomach, she sighs.

Her words are the oldest censure of my eating life, the most frequent, and the most unheeded. They have little to do with the size of my body, which is slender, and everything to do with the size of my desire, which is vast, unwieldy, panoptic. Mum plunges the wooden spoon deep into the pot for a last stir. The paddle emerges coated with translucent slivers of onion, specks of tomato, a scattering of coriander leaves. My mouth waters, all reason drowns. I start scheming strategies to control how much might be eaten by our imminent guests. We have to use the small bowls to serve. And Mum shouldnt insist on extra helpings. And whatever happens, she cant offer anybody a portion to take home.

Stop being so silly, Mum says. Theres plenty here. And anyhow, I can always make more for you.

But it doesnt matter how much she cooks. She can never make enough. Not for me.

Mine is perhaps an odd strain of a common affliction, a variant of the consumption epidemic ravaging our capitalist societies: those of us who have the most still want more, much more, than we need. Could it be otherwise in a system premised on the false conviction that our existence as we know it depends on the continuity of one thing alone: economic growth? Our appetites must keep increasing to propel the economy. Eyes bigger than stomach the refrain that sums me up also epitomises our contemporary condition. But are there situations where greed, if not excusable, is understandable, and maybe even necessary?

Kadhi is what awaits me every time I go see my mother. Mostly in London, but wherever she happens to be Australia or Kenya, the countries where my siblings live whenever I come, kadhi is cooked. It is what I take away from each visit as well; my mother prepares and freezes batches of the tarka, the spicy tomato base at the heart of much North Indian cuisine, the most time-consuming aspect of the dish. Roasting spices, browning onions, reducing tomatoes this alone can take up to an hour, before the main ingredients of the dish are added and the whole mixture cooked further. In the case of kadhi, the tarka is a mix of whole fenugreek and mustard seeds, ground cumin and coriander, curry leaves, onion, garlic, turmeric, green chilli and tinned tomato. All I have to do at home in Berlin is heat up Mums tarka, add yoghurt and flour, sprinkle fresh coriander to finish, and I have the taste of another home, the feeling of time turning in slow, savoury spirals. Each bite holds the flavour of the past and the present, a lifetime of my mothers love, her unstinting hospitality.

Things my mother has long done for me almost effortlessly become, with age and illness, more burdensome for her. This has not curbed her generosity, but every gesture costs her more. I suspect I began to notice the change long after it had started to happen. One day I went home and there was no kadhi. Mum was all apology. She had bought the ingredients, but had simply not felt up to cooking. But Ill do it now! she said quickly. No doubt my face had betrayed my disappointment, which was not just about the setback to my stomach substantial though that was but the letdown of love. I knew that my mother would do anything for me, and the fact that she had not managed this relatively small task pained me. If even her boundless adoration, always ready to express itself, had not succeeded in pushing her over the threshold of limitation, she must be really unwell or really old. I felt her mortality, a frightening chill. She had never seemed so fragile, not even lying in a hospital bed, not even when she was totally grey from depression. I felt tremendously sorry for her but also for myself. And I became angry, because my sense of what was most dependable in the world had been shaken. It wont take long. Mum set a pan on the hob, started rifling for ingredients. I protested, both earnestly and falsely, that it wasnt necessary, I could wait, kadhi didnt matter. If you help me with the chopping well be done before you know it. The sound of her voice was accompanied by the static of mustard seeds popping in hot oil, releasing a smell that pierced my nose as sharply as the tears welling in my eyes. Its the onions, I insisted to Mum when she noticed. It was not the onions. It was life, tipping the scales of give and take.