Much Ado about Cooking

I am a highly misunderstood person…just like you. I had dreams and ambitions in my life…just like you. Some came true and I had to let go of the others...just like you. But the similarity ends there.

I am a person who has had 2 failed relationships; a marriage and a live in. And that puts me in the bracket of people who are deemed unfit for a life-long, stable relationship. Some people with a twisted mind even label me as “cool”…they truly feel psyched about the way I have led my life. But I never had the wish to have broken relationships. Till this day it hurts.

My marriage happened to my first love Ri. Ri and I met in college and it was love at first sight. The college days were such a whirlwind of perfection. We were insanely happy and high…all the time. When we spilled the beans at home our parents did not show the slightest sign of disapproval. Why would they? Ri and I had both bagged jobs with a multinational corporate and we seemed to deeply care for each other. They were happy that we did not burden them with the additional responsibility of finding the right match for us.

So we got married in a rather long ceremony. All the pictures starting from the pre wedding photo shoot to the honeymoon looked straight out of movies. Everyone was lavish with compliments on our Facebook page and we felt like we were simply the luckiest people to be alive on this planet.

The problem began after that. It stemmed from a very simple issue. I cannot cook and I do not intend to learn the skill as well. After we came back from work Ri used to cook small meals for both of us. I had insisted several times about hiring a cook but Ri seemed to love cooking for me. And yes I loved to come back home to get a warm meal prepared by my love. I had grown up seeing my mom doing the same for my father, my sister and me; so the look of fresh home cooked food always made me feel happy and assured about life.  And Ri seemed to love doing it for me. We were happy.

But Ri had friends who had to interfere and put ideas into Ri’s head. They brought up the feminist issue and said that I am trying to prove a point here. And yes slowly Ri started to believe them. Ri too started to feel that it was my way of trying to ensure that the power in the relationship remains with me. In my defense I can say that I am not lazy and while Ri cooked after office I too did not laze around doing nothing. I dusted and cleaned and filled the water bottles and made the bed. I made sure that while Ri was making the meals I was finishing up the rest of the household chores.

But comparison is a truly horrible thing. The stories of other spouses taking care to cook elaborate exotic meals kept pouring into Ri’s ears. Very slowly I became the uncaring and stone hearted spouse whose only intention was to make a slave out of Ri. Things became bitter and we fought over silly things. Bit by bit we started to hate each other and coming back home from work seemed to be the worst part of the day. And thus one day we decided to end our loveless marriage.

The legal battle was draining for me. Ri and I were both against dowry and no dowry had been exchanged at the time of our wedding. We had decorated our pad with furniture bought with our own money. But at the time of divorce Ri insisted that those belonged to Ri’s family and I had no right on those. More than the financial aspect, the blatant denial and lying and haggling over material stuff hurt me. But I was at least happy that we did not continue with our marriage. I had completely lost all my love and respect for Ri.

It was hard for me to suddenly find myself in the world of singles. I was so used to having a perfect love life that the sudden downhill climb of my life left me confused about what to do next.

But I was young and my hormones were still very much functional. Soon I met Su at an office party. Su was much younger than me and it almost looked ridiculous when Su started to hit on me. I was both amazed and amused. It felt good to know that I still can arouse the feelings of love…or may be lust in another person. We started to go out. Su was very uninhibited about everything. We needed each other in a physical way and we decided to move in together. Again it felt good to know that I could defy the societal norms and start a live in relationship with someone 12 years younger than me. It was liberating. Su loved me, cared for me, depended on me. I had hired a cook from day 1 even without consulting Su. I had no wish to let a simple problem take over and ruin my love life again.

Life was good again. We laughed, we loved, we lived. But fate was not kind to me for long. Soon I could feel Su move apart from me. I could not track exactly what it was but something was driving Su away from me. I was scared of bringing up the topic lest Su admitted it as the truth. So I continued to pretend that everything was fine. But things were not and I had much later found out that Su had gotten involved with someone who was even older than me. Older but richer…someone who could be a better staircase to a better life. Su left me unceremoniously. There was no confession. Su simply said that the love was gone in our relationship. There was a specific list given to me about my inadequacies. A shoddily done list at the last minute and none of the points could make me feel bad except one. Su had said that I never bothered making even a simple breakfast ever. Supposedly it was an effort to impose my superiority on Su. It was ridiculous like the 9 other points and a cheating partner does not really have the right to justify the break up. I knew it but still it pierced through my heart like hard shrapnel. Again?

The lack of a simple skill destroyed my life...two times over. I am not against equality. I believe men and women to be equal. But people have different skills and I believe that one should do what he or she likes doing. We should not have to do things we do not like to prove our love or loyalty. But no one had the patience or willingness to believe in me.

There I was, single at 37, abandoned by two people whom I had truly loved once. There are people who do not care about love and relationships but I am not one of those people. I cannot start to travel round the world with a backpack slung over my shoulders tomorrow and claim that it feels good to be single again. I need to love someone and be loved back by the same person. Turns out that this simple requirement comes with very hard rider conditions…

A year passed by. Things did not get better for me and I started to long for love. I had a 9-6 job and almost never had to work overtime. I know that many people are jealous of that but for a lonely person such work timing can be big curse. I scrutinized my past often and remembered how happy Ri and I used to be once upon a time. Had I really been too rigid? Would it have been better if I had at least tried to learn cooking? I started to doubt myself and one fine day I enrolled for a cooking class. I thought it would be a good way to fill my evenings…and maybe it will enable me to break the jinx.

Well…it was not planned to happen this way but I started to fall for the teacher of the cooking class, Ka.

Ka looked my age and I could see behind Ka’s strong and confident exterior a lonely human being who like me wished for “the comfort human company”. (The word “love” is perhaps a bit too perfect and hence unreal at this stage of life.)

We started to hang out together and it was never necessary to spell out to each other that we make each other happy. I was thinking that all this time why it never occurred to me that my ideal match would be a cook. But first I needed to be honest about myself with Ka. The very next day I disclosed my past to Ka.

“You aren’t expecting me to cook for you…are you?” that was the first reaction from Ka.

I was a bit stunned.

“Come on…who likes to carry work back home? I am a professional chef…I don’t want to cook at home as well! You are an IT architect. Would you like it if I asked you to help with my technical glitches at home?”

Ka realized how wrong the comparison was because my eyes glistened at the prospect of solving the glitches in our purported future.

“Ok…you would like it…but that’s because you get bored at office and hence get excited at the hint of the slightest technical challenge. But me…I love my job! Cooking again at home might burn me out.” Ka put forward flawless argument.

 “Do I have to learn to cook if we…if you and I do become we?” I asked.

“Your wish. At the moment I get my lunch and dinner from a trusted dabbawala. We can continue doing the same and ditch cooking completely.” Ka was smiling.

And I fell for Ka. We found in each other what we were looking for…a trust that we will be there together no matter what.

We got married in a small ceremony attended by a bunch of friends. And yes all is well in our life. And we don’t have a kitchen at our home…we turned it into a games room! Some people find it weird…but for us it makes perfect sense. It has been a rather long course for me but I did find my happy ending at last.

I hid one small detail from you till now. I am a woman. Rishav, Suhit and Karan are men I had loved and love respectively. I am very sorry if I have misled you but I don’t know why I felt that it would be easier to get your empathy if I omitted mentioning my gender.