I just finished watching the movie Darlings. The protagonist, the ‘darlings,’ is in the kitchen, apparently preparing breakfast for her husband, who ends up beating her black and blue the previous night, like numerous others. Life is not a piece of cake, and Alia’s character makes noise, banging up the utensils that pretend to whimper and sniffle at the wife-beating regimen they sit through each passing day.
The remorseless husband, definitely not a cool cucumber, observes monstrously, trying to win over his ragged doll while she snaps and cooks, face glued to the fire from the cooktop. In numerous kitchens, food has borne the brunt, symbolized the condition of human desires, sorrows, and predicaments, and gone on to become a mesmerizing storyteller.
While watching the film, I was reminded of Geeta Hariharan’s short story Gazar Halwa, where the migrant domestic labourer Perumayee, slogs in a Delhi kitchen endlessly grating and peeling red carrots in preparation of Gazar Halwa’, a traditional Indian sweet prepared with much ado to symbolize love and familial bondings. Sadly, for Perumayee, a young female migrant worker, and several other women tied up in loveless domesticity, the heaps of grated carrots and mounds of peels become metaphors for unending misery and sorrow. The process of carrot halwa preparation is transformed into a narrative on poverty, dejection, powerlessness, greed, resistance, and much more. The luscious and steaming red halwa simmering with excitement to be savored and gutted is a vivid reminder of the hullaballoo in Perumayee’s home for a taste of food, a sip of water, and the everyday struggle to secure a home to sleep in.
