Rainbow Rice

Rainbow rice was my all-time favourite. Chewy basmati grains soaked in a sweet syrup infused with cardamon and ghee, punctuated by the crunch of a large almond or the tart pang of white raisins. Although 10 years on I am less fond of raisins, as a child it felt like finding a bead of gold in a sticky pot of colourful jewels. Ami was a bona fide Zarda, (aka rainbow rice), expert. In fact, she was likely the best cook of all time. Dhaigs* of spicy biryani studded with tangy nuggets of tamarind for potlucks with family friends, cold lassis during mango season in the summer, nutritious chicken broths for when we were down with the flu in the colder months, South Asian renditions of our favourite foreign food when we were bored of ‘ghar ka khana’*, kung pao chicken (with a desi twist of course), shepherd’s pie (with chicken karahi seasoning folded into the mince), fresh juice and cut fruit appearing mysteriously at our desks during exam season, and as you can probably imagine, many more such examples. For every occasion, there was a dish, a culinary expression of maternal concern and affection, often thanklessly received without any thought to the labour of love involved… sometimes even criticised.

“There is too much salt!”

“The meat still carries an odour.”

“Why didn’t you make more?”

“But Ami, I felt like chicken nuggets today…”

Flippant comments from full and nourished children, in-laws and husband – courtesy, of course, of her countless painstaking hours in the kitchen. But for Ami, every thoughtless remark was a point of necessary feedback, an opportunity to adapt an already stellar meal to the whims of the ones she loved the most. Always gracious, committed and smiling.

It wasn’t until the cut fruit and fresh juice stopped wondrously appearing at our desks, our contributions to the frequent potlucks began to dwindle (in quality and supply), and we were forced to snack on stale hospital strudel while waiting week in and week out for an updated diagnosis or a positive result from what seemed like unending treatments and tests, that we began to finally appreciate the chef behind it all.

The food that was once the crux of our household, the most tangible form of our mother’s love, was now an incessant reminder of her diminishing health. As the cancer slowly leached her of life, our household and its inhabitants were also gradually drained of vitality, as if everything she poured into us was evaporating with her body.

Ami passed after two years of suffering on the summer solstice of 2016 – just ahead of mango season. Needless to say, no one marked the incoming warm weather with cold juice, mango lassi or rainbow rice. Losing a family member, particularly a mother, is never easy. It becomes even less so when their absence forces you to reckon with the injustice of their life.

Ami did not grow up poor nor rich. A middle-class woman originating from Punjab, Pakistan with a relatively normal upbringing and a generally free-thinking family who, although still very traditional, were far from extreme. She was one of 6 siblings, slender and tall growing up and very pretty in an eastern sort of way, unlikely to cause the parents issues in the marriage department. When she turned 19, Ami started a medical degree at a local college but left mid-term in her second year after getting engaged to my father and moving to England once wed. Ami’s story was never couched in extenuating circumstances. She did not overcome insurmountable hardships or any of the cultural adversity that was prevalent in the era she grew up in. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why we so readily relegated her achievements while she was alive.

Her life was a series of microaggressions. A stifled laugh amongst siblings every time she pronounced a word wrong in English, a furtive glance between father and daughter every time she fussed over something as inconsequential as what to make for dinner tonight – the follies of a mere housewife, no professional pursuits to keep her occupied so of course she’d resort to household chores and kitchen work for relevance!

“Nobody helps me in this house!” She’d often say in frustration when we’d neglect to rinse our dishes or fail to clear dirty laundry strewn across the bedroom floor. But why should we when we had school, work, university and better more important things to tend to?

For the longest time, we acknowledged that we loved our mother but never really respected her, after all, she didn’t really do much besides putting food on the table, right? But now that the food was no longer on the table and the family was fractured and distant, it became clear that our perception of Ami was fueled by the commentary of a small misogynistic man residing in our chests, a nagging symbiote-like creature telling us she hadn’t done anything remarkable when in reality, a woman as rife with passion as she was could easily have achieved above and beyond the average person. She was, as it turns out, doing us a favour. Channeling her passions into her family, choosing us as her magnus opus – not resuming her degree and becoming a doctor, not getting an office job in the strange new country she moved to 26 years ago, or even starting her own catering business as we often encouraged her to do (but assumed she didn’t have the gall to try every time she refused). We were her life’s work. For 16 years, I was unable to see beyond the whisperings of the disgruntled patriarch I’d internalised. My seemingly ordinary mother’s extraordinary impact was only realised once she had left this world, and for the next 10 years I hated myself for never seeing her for who she really was.   

10 years later

I still thought about my mother. Many years later and it still ate at me inside knowing she was never given her due, never truly recognised as significant. This daily cocktail of grief and regret continued to brew inside until it fermented into profound self-hatred, an obligation almost to posthumously compensate Ami for her years of not-so-professional service and somehow show others what she was capable of. The idea first came to me in the 4th summer after her death when I had made my friend Suhana a desi style Mango Sago, one of Ami’s favourite desserts.

“This is literally tasty enough to sell; I could probably inhale 2 more.” Suhana remarked.

Tasty enough to sell, I thought. Perhaps it was. Perhaps there was a market, an opportunity to exploit, an avenue through which the skill my mother put so much time into honing for our sake could garner some recognition. I decided then, motivated mainly by the business opportunity but also by the prospect of somehow manifesting my mother back into existence, to start a restaurant. It would be a modern developed outlet, featuring traditional cuisine alongside some fusion dishes that Ami used to cook. I had no recipe book, no tangible source of information that I could refer to replicate her signature taste, only a vague recollection of verbal reminders.

“Beta, keep the karahi on dhum* for less than 15 minutes”, “always keep kheer* in the fridge before it is served,” “only every reheat naan* on the pan once you’ve sprayed it with water…”

But that was enough. Gripped by the mania of the idea, I proceeded to plan the concept and within the next 6 years the restaurant was complete and ready for the public. It did well, attracting a lot of the local desi community as well as other demographics who were mainly interested in the fusion offerings. The food, though perhaps not as authentic in terms of taste as I envisioned it to be, was good enough to build a base of recurring customers. The interior was modern, clean and aesthetic without being overly crowded. Comfortable chairs / sofas, atmospheric lighting and traditional décor. It was a success. The restaurant was, within a year of opening, always relatively crowded. But as the business grew, so did the bills, the quarrels among management and the responsibilities. Every day I constantly grappled with issues typical of an up-and-coming business and admittedly, swallowed any feelings of lingering grief, any emotion that this ode to Ami’s life would occasionally conjure, pushing it down and tucking it away to make space for solutions. I loved my mother, but even after her death it felt like I was relegating her memory to make room for more important things, storing the emotion until it felt radioactive.

It was around this time that I would patrol the restaurant floor on particularly bustling nights as the wait staff rushed to tend to munching customers. I would simply check in, ask how the service was today, if the food was up to scratch, what had been their favourite dish so far etc.

It was a typical night of approaching customers, inquiring about their experience, when I saw a small child sat eating with her parents, probably no more than 5 years old, pulling apart strips of spiced paneer with a plastic fork. She looked up and our eyes met, something about the glistening tapioca pupils were painfully familiar. For some reason my mind cast back to a shopping trip with Ami. We were in the cheese aisle looking for mozzarella when she playfully said, “you know beta, before I moved to this country, I didn’t know there were this many types of cheese in the world but look! Cheese is cheese, why we need so many?” I remember chortling at the innocence of her remark, the simplicity of a vastly different urban-Eastern upbringing.

The child stared at me smiling, as if recalling the same anecdote. I felt like I had seen that smile before. Slightly moved by the interaction, I continued approaching tables, trying not to turn back to observe the child any further. Toward the end of the evening, I saw the parents preparing to leave the restaurant with a different child in their arms. That’s strange, where was the dark eyed girl I saw earlier? She had probably run ahead or was in the bathroom or something, yes that’s probably it. Yet despite this perfectly logical explanation, I couldn’t shake off the uncharacteristic maturity of her gaze, the knowing smile, like she and I were in on the same secret. A few days later, I was thinking of the same child and checked my phone. Absently scrolling through the family WhatsApp chat when I came across a photo shared by aunt Sabriyah 2-3 weeks ago. It was a childhood photo of Ami sat grinning cross legged in what looked like a park in Pakistan wearing a turtleneck and dungarees, the photo black and white and seeded with age.

The message underneath read, “she looked like such a naughty child…”

It was true, childhood Ami was undoubtedly a mischievous kid. Even in the photo, it was obvious from the cheeky grin and dark eyes that she was up to no good. Those eyes…they were the eyes of the child I had seen at the restaurant. In fact, she looked somehow identical to the little girl. I mean, at least I thought she did but perhaps the grainy quality of the photo was distorting my recollection…

Every time I was on patrol in the restaurant after that I found myself looking for the child, but to no avail. Some time had passed and I was once again absorbed by the responsibility of running a growing, bustling, chaotic services business. Until one night after constant customer check ins and kitchen oversight, I saw her. Sat upright, slowly nibbling at a bowl of halim*, I saw Ami and she saw me. She leaned over and touched my arm.

Perhaps it was the shear intensity of this ache for a woman whose memory was being slowly overwhelmed by the constant static of adult life and routine, or perhaps it was the all too familiar glossiness of a stranger’s warm dark eyes, soft grip and coy smile, that somehow jerked the pang of her absence back to the forefront of my memory. It seemed as though my stifled grief was radioing some nearby spectral beacon, summoning familiar spirits to assume their final ephemeral form.

But as quick as it came, the flash of recognition, the connection felt between two familiar souls once mother and daughter, gone. The stranger that looked back at me was just that, a stranger, now quizzically observing my gawking expression as if to determine whether she had caused some offence.

She had the same light wheatish tone of skin, though clearly missing the unique brown birth mark flecked across an elegant sloping nose; the same thick smock of dark hair, though now very clearly distinct from the shiny silk I grew up playfully plaiting every morning; and the same general contour of the face, but without the striking cheekbones I remember admiring as a pudgy faced child. Features that a few minutes ago were in sharp focus were now distorted into the cold novelty of a stranger’s face. It was like someone had blurred the details of an intricate oil painting, brushing a layer of stinking spirit over dear and delicate details.

Was I being haunted? Or was I just going crazy? Maybe I needed therapy.

All I knew was that I must see her again. I consulted with management and updated the menu to include fresh dishes.

“We need a change! New food for a new season of customers, it’s summer for God’s sake!”

But little did they know the fresh additions were Ami’s personal favourites. Maybe this was enough to bring her back or at least a customer in her likeness. I waited. Day in and day out. I waited so long that my previous supernatural encounters with what felt like the ghost of Christmas past and present seemed like the conjurings of a restless mind. I definitely needed therapy. Until one cold, rainy December evening, a few minutes before we were about to wind up for the night, an old lady entered the restaurant.

Completely unfamiliar, I was certain I had never met her before but as soon as I walked over to take her order, I knew it was her. Clear from the twinkle in the dark aged eyes and thickness of the plaited hair, now streaked with white, it was obvious to anyone that loved her that this was Ami. I knew this was the last time I would see her.  

“Welcome, what can we get you today?”

The old woman poured over the menu, deliberating silently upon every dish.

“What about some rainbow rice, extra raisins please.

We both locked eyes and smiled.

Translated terms

Dhaig = a large cooking pot used in Pakistan to cook massive quantities of food for weddings and other special occasions.

Ghar ka khana = traditional Pakistani food cooked at home.

Dhum = to simmer.

Kheer = a desi rice pudding like dessert.

Naan = a soft flatbread eaten alongside various different types of curries in South Asian Cuisine.

Halim = a thick, slow-cooked stew made from meat, lentils, and crushed wheat or barley.