CHAPTER No.4 ||PART 3/29||
me how to cook a basic curry. Two days later, he invited friends for dinner. In a state of panic, I
frantically looked for the book my sister had bought for me. It was Meera Taneja’s Pakistani Cooking.
That book saved me. I had never cooked curries before. I knew how to bake so I decided to focus on the
oven. I put in a whole chicken and potatoes to roast. But the curry was not so easy. It wasn’t that the
recipe was hard to follow, but there were no pans. The beef refused to soften in the saucepans I was
using.
I only knew how to make kheer, a Pakistani rice pudding, from a readymade mix. But when I put
the milk to boil, it would scald. I was so scared that I hid the saucepan in the cupboard when I heard Ijaz
coming. He walked in as I opened the door, and immediately asked what was burnt. He started sniffing the air and then marched into the kitchen. I said it was nothing but he started inspecting everything. He
lifted lids, looked into the sink, and started inspecting the cabinets. Finally, he found the offending
article. He clenched his jaw in anger. ‘’First you burn it and then you hide it from me?”
It seems ridiculous to be afraid of a man for scalding a bit of milk in the bottom of a pan. But that
girl was in a new, frightening situation. No one had ever shouted at that girl. That young girl felt like a
criminal for scalding some milk. The girl was embarrassed and scared. The taming program had begun.
It was not that he wanted the perfect housewife, because I became that very quickly. He wanted power over me.