Who will cook? - The Feminist Friday (Part I)

“Women belong in the kitchen but remember that is where the knives are.”

This quote on the Internet has stuck with me for almost a decade now.

While I was brought up in a nuclear family with only an elder sister, I never witnessed the gender discrimination clearly prevalent in Indian households.

My mother (like most mothers) is a Monica-clean freak and before I learned to cook, I was taught to clean the kitchen. Over the years, it has become a habit that if I am at home, I would contribute to the kitchen in almost all ways, sometimes cooking the whole dinner by myself.

However, my family never discusses marriage or in-laws and the only reason why I was taught to cook was that I SHOULD know how to cook (a far better reason than, in-laws ke ghar jakar kya pakaogi).

For the past half-decade, I have been a strong proponent of teaching men how to cook. Because even though boys (with all their jugaad) cook in hostel rooms, starting from procurement to washing utensils, but at homes - it is a rare sight that boys voluntarily and regularly assist their mothers in the kitchen. Many men haven’t even known to prepare themselves a cup of tea at home, forget a whole meal.

On the bright side, once these men are married to women working in paid-corporate jobs, they start taking up responsibilities of the household chores and somewhat contributing to the kitchen cooking as well. And I would like to see this translate into wives not being judged on their laziness or non-inclination to cook while men are saved from taunts and judgmental comments.

However, a disturbing trend that has come up is when my neighbour aunty bragged, “Oh, my daughter doesn’t know how to cook - nothing except a Maggi and a cup of tea, she knows nothing in the kitchen.” And while we are talking of trends, I see so many wanna-be influencers making Reels on a rant on how they know nothing about cooking and prefer lying in the living room with either their mothers cooking food for them or all hail Zomato!

As an independent woman, I feel this behaviour is appalling! While I have spent so much time asking my male friends to contribute more to cooking, women walking away from kitchen is an anarchy that would do no good to our society.

The young generation goes like, we’ll keep a cook if we ever have to live alone but tell that to the whole lot of bachelors stuck in their flats in Metro cities during Lockdown 1.0 last year - calling their mothers every hour and learning how to cook on a video call. Also, as the Indian Society is inclining more towards the individualistic side, why this dependency on housemaids or restaurants for something as basic as cooking?

Cooking is a life skill. And it is a pity, that as a society, parents are making their children so dependent on them and depriving them of learning the skill that will help them survive. Of course, it is easy to cook a plate of Poha, but do you know how to cook the Rajma Chawal you crave every other week? Also, although some people naturally work adeptly in the kitchen, some people get better with experience. And it is always better to get this experience in your home with mom by your side so that when you are managing work, you do not see cooking as a burden.

But sadly, as cooking as a skill is not being passed down to kids, some regional delicacies and recipes are also getting extinct. So we are becoming America in only the sense of our dependency on Burgers, Pizzas and Coke.

Some may argue, that in this pandemic, Instagram bloggers have levelled up their game by cooking all sorts of dishes at home since the restaurants were closed - but my question to that would be - after spending half of the day on exhausting Zoom calls, would you like to cook something with so much efforts and raw material required? Another point of concern is health. The most healthy, nutritious and pocket-friendly diets are available at home - a mix bowl of proteins and carbohydrates that can be customised as per one’s requirements - but if an entire generation does not learn to cook - who would you blame for your deteriorating health in yours early 30s?

I have seen men walk into the kitchen once in a blue moon and bragging for days about their dishes. And I have seen women attach doing household chores to the sign of oppression of patriarchal society. And I believe both need to change.

So this weekend - learn to cook your favourite Indian meal - and do not forget to clean the kitchen.