Chef (21 page)
‘German music, sir.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. The enemy played it again and again for two full days – very loud – this music. Why did you give it to her?’
‘Sir, I thought, sir, music would ease the tension. General Sahib had asked me, sir, to conduct interrogations delicately, sir.’
‘The interrogations are over, Kirpal.’
‘Sir.’
‘This was a serious breach of order, Kirpal. I am giving you the last warning. General Kumar knew your Father Sahib. I knew him too. He was our finest officer. You have been pardoned because of your father. This must never happen again. Understand?’
Then he buried his face in the file again. I looked at the tea and coffee circles on the desk, and his cap. After a while I coughed.
‘You are still here?’
‘Sir, where is the woman sir?’
‘Woman?’
‘The enemy woman, sir?’
‘Not here.’
‘Sir.’
‘Dismiss.’
I now know the name of the music she heard. Chef Kishen had received that tape from Chef Muller in the German embassy during his training, but he did not know the title of the music. For many years I did not know the title either. It was only last year I found out. I visited the German embassy in Delhi. The yellow-haired girl at the embassy sent me to Goethe House, where the music librarian asked me to sing that piece of music.
I tried.
TUH-dee TUH-dee
TA-deeee TA-deeee
TUH-dee TUH-dee
TA-deeee TA-deeee
‘Try again,’ she said.
Daam Dum De-daaam De-daaam
Daam Dum De-daaam De-daaam
‘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
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 stunningly beautiful and well-educated. She had spent years in London and New York and was getting married to an Indian boy who had also spent time in New York and London. Both had moved back
home
because they did not want to be treated
second class
in those foreign lands. Bina took great interest in Indian art, buildings and food. She had even gotten involved with the Department of Tourism to write glossy brochures for foreign visitors. She handed me, during our second meeting, a brochure she had written herself about the Governor’s residence.
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 stunning view of the Dal Lake, the ancient ruins, the snow-clad mountain ranges, and the Hazratbal Mosque. On the east side is a large cherry orchard, and on the west the Royal Springs Golf Course.
The banquet, I must say, was my best accomplishment to this date. We had a pre-banquet dinner as well, which I cooked on a small scale for eight chosen guests – the old Governor and his daughter met me before the dinner to decide the menu and I had to use some tact to convey that most of their choices were simply wrong, and whenever the old Governor started insisting on a dish, Bina (like Rubiya) would wink her eye and smile as if saying to me, just ignore him, he is being fussy for nothing.
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.
Two days before the banquet, a curfew was imposed on the city because of militant violence. Bombs and IE devices exploded in downtown. I needed prawns and fish and ingredients for cioppino – the Italian soup – and many other things. Bina was nervous, but the captain who escorted me into the city told her not to worry. He ordered the pilot jeep to accompany the Governor’s black car, in which I sat on the front seat, and my two assistants sat on the back, and two military trucks moved ahead of the car and two moved behind, and a windowless armored vehicle raced on the side, and that is how I went to the bazaar to shop for the banquet. The shops were closed because of the curfew, so we knocked and woke up the shopkeepers one by one, and I told them not to worry because we meant no harm, and if they refused to charge I paid them anyway.
On the wedding day the Prime Minister himself flew to the Raj Bhavan, and the Defense Minister was also present along with other high dignitaries and eminent personalities. General Chibber, General Raina, Shri Bhagat, Mr Modi and Dr Jagdish Tytler. Colonel Chowdhry and Patsy Memsahib. The white American ambassador and his black secretary and the chief of the World Bank. Business tycoons. Only government journalists were allowed, the event was not announced to the public, and after the meal the Prime Minister demanded that I show my face, and I appeared in a liveried dress meant for special occasions. I walked straight to the drawing room, somewhat nervous, but the PM put me at ease by telling a Sikh joke, and we all laughed.
‘Well done, Kirpal ji,’ he said. ‘One day when Governor Sahib is not around, we will have to steal you!’
Later many guests recited poetry, and the Prime Minister recited his own poems, and a bureaucrat translated, and the PM said that it was the most perfect translation of his poems from Hindi into English, and the foreign guests applauded with loud clapping. Sahib opened the most expensive French wine to
honor poetry
, and the more he drank the more the PM changed and looked different from his photos in magazines.
It was a grand affair. Because the number of guests was over three hundred, we had to set up a special scullery tent in the area close to the servants’ quarters. We hired temporary staff. We had to get security clearance for all of them – whether they were Muslims or non-Muslims, but mostly they were poor Muslims. We managed to sneak most of them in without the clearance. There were around a hundred waiting staff.
Golf-ball-sized goshtaba. Tails of sheep. Paisley-shaped naans. Moorish eggplant. Murgh Wagah. Rogan Josh. Pasta with roasted chestnuts and walnuts. Paella valenciana. Pavlova salad. Oysters. I remember it fresh like yesterday. The bartender came from Bombay (with his special English brandy). Bollywood stars flew in. Red carpets lined the walkways. Red shamiana tents were pitched under chenar trees. The Hindu priest had a PhD in Sanskrit. Bina changed her dress thirteen times. She and the groom circled the fire seven times. The air smelled of an epic wedding, flowers everywhere. Columns and spheres and disks and mandalas of pansies and marigolds and jasmines and daffodils and roses. Wild roses. The kitchen door was open and I heard footsteps. From behind the curtains I saw the outgoing Governor, in profile, and the incoming Governor guiding the special guests to the glass cabinet in the drawing room. General Sahib pointed at the famous photo from the ’71 India–Pakistan War.