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Pressure Cooker


Daubing the top of wicks, one by one, with drops of kerosene, J proceeded to rest her newly bought Hawkins pressure cooker on the stove. “Now, you wait for the whistle” said the wealthy neighbouring lady who assisted J that morning with the cooker. With an assumed indifference, J waited for the whistle to lift its bottom over the lid and dance in merry. The kerosene stove, she was told won’t do justice to the cooker; she needed a proper gas stove with sleek finish and hollowed eyes that spewed blue flames with the turn of a switch. The kerosene stove with its twelve tongues brocaded over the epithelial layer of its throat, strung into a circle, served her family since the time of marriage. Her son squatted beside her, giggled and found it amusing as J rubbed his cheeks with her hands warmed before the many tongued stove. In the forlorn house under the wooden roof that leaked, between the pale brown walls that flaked, over the grey rugged tiles that cracked, mother and son lent their thoughts an air of admiration for the pressure cooker. J explained to her son “Now, your lunch box will be ready in a jiffy”

Many years from now, her son would, in the comfort of an AC hall, typing melodiously on his laptop, would recall his mother’s trying times. One incident in particular, both, mother and son, would relish, running along the memory coils, hand in hand, was to be the incident that involved J standing in the queue at the local ration shop for her turn to buy kerosene. On that occasion, when her turn came (after four long hours of standing in the queue), ration shop ran out of kerosene. Standing there, the nineteen year old mother, sapped pitifully off morale and dejected, wept disconsolately.

Presently in the seventh year of her marriage, J looked back on those days of her life, when she cooked on the fire contained hopelessly in the earthenware stove. Choking the earthenware stove through the narrow bridge of its neck with dry sticks, twigs and buffalo chips, she cooked for the entire household that included her husband’s parents, sisters and brothers. Her face was flushed black and hair broke with ruptured ends; skin on her hands turned rough, with the nub of her fingers burnt, scarred and despaired, she continued. J’s mother, a haggard old lady, on her visits to the newly wed daughter’s house, hid her tears in the cusp of her hands as she raised them with the cotton saree’s end covering the wrinkled face.

Presently, her reminiscing train of thought was interrupted with the whistle. Carefully she tightened her fist around the protracted handle to loosen the lid’s grip. Clearing her vision off the thick white smoke that rose up as if it was subjected to centuries of undue pressure, she proceeded to drop the washer into a tub of water. The three flat bottomed bowls with rice, dal and beans curry wedged into one another took J a bit of deliberation with the neighbouring lady as to the dislodging of one’s bottom from other’s mouth.

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