Column | Lesson in a quince apple

‘You just have to dig deep enough to find the beating heart under all the rubble’
| Photo Credit: Zainab Tambawalla

One day a dispute of an odd nature reached Phuphee. She was in the kitchen standing over a bubbling pot of bumtchoont ti maaz (quince apples and meat). It was a balmy August afternoon and she had come in from the orchards with a basket full of golden quinces. They had been washed, cored and sliced into wedges, before she had fried them and set them aside. When the meat was halfway done, she had added the bumtchoont and let the flavours mingle.

The steam from the pot had clouded her glasses, but even without looking out of the window, she instructed one of the helpers to make some kahwa in preparation for guests. I looked out of the window trying to figure out who the three people walking towards the house were, when she nudged me with the wooden chonche (a chunky wooden spoon) and said, ‘The important thing to remember about bumtchoont ti maaz is that you must wait till the meat is halfway done before adding the fried fruit. If you add it any sooner, it will be a lumpy mess.’

She instructed one of the other helpers to take the dish off the daan in 20 minutes, and to serve it to the guests for lunch.

‘How do you know they will stay for lunch?’ I asked.

‘Arguing with your children is hard work,’ she replied with a wink. I had no idea what she was going on about.

‘Come and sit with me and learn.’ She held my hand and led the way.

The family of three — father, mother and their daughter — were waiting in Phuphee’s room and drinking hot cups of kahwa.

After greeting them and asking after their health, Phuphee asked what she could do to help?

The gentleman teared up and narrated his tale of woe. They were from a higher caste family and had planned to send their daughter to university to study science, and become a teacher or a professor. But she had refused and instead asked if she could go to the fashion college in Srinagar. His voice had become exponentially loud at this point.

‘Tell me sister, have you heard of anything more ludicrous? A girl from our family going to some college to study to be a tailor?’ he roared. ‘Someone has cast an evil spell on her and I have come here so you can help us remove this evil from her brain.’

Phuphee nodded sympathetically. Up until this point, the girl’s mother had not uttered a peep. Phuphee turned to her and asked what she thought about her daughter’s request. The gentleman interrupted, ‘She thinks the same…,’ but Phuphee raised her hand to signal that he had had his time.

‘Dapp sa [tell me],’ she told the woman.

‘We have another child, an older boy. His father wanted him to become a doctor, but he wanted to be a lawyer. His choice was respected. He studies abroad because that is what he wishes. When he told us of his decision, no one thought he was possessed or under a spell. I know what my daughter is proposing is a little unusual, but it is neither beneath nor above anything. I have seen her designs and I believe she has talent. I know she will work hard. The only reason people think it is acceptable to throttle her aspirations is because she is a girl,’ the woman said, a little out of breath.

Everyone, including the daughter, was left stunned. The room was silent.

‘I think it is time for lunch,’ Phuphee said, splintering the quiet.

The food was brought in and eaten in silence. Only Phuphee spoke towards the end of the meal. ‘Knowing that bumtchoont ti maaz go together is knowledge, but adding the bumtchoont at the right time during the cooking process is wisdom.’

Once done, she invited the gentleman to have a smoke with her. They went out to the verandah where they smoked and spoke in hushed voices. When they came back, Phuphee wished them all well and told the young girl she wished her good luck at fashion college.

Later in the evening, I asked Phuphee what spell she had cast on the gentleman to make him agree to his daughter studying fashion.

‘I reminded him of the time he had come to see Aapa [Phuphee’s grandmother] when his father had opposed his wish to marry the woman who is now his wife because she was from a different caste. And how he had been prepared to run away and leave his family for the sake of the one he loved. I asked him to remember how that felt. That was it,’ she replied.

I was stunned. What, no magic? No spells? She had changed his mind simply by speaking to him?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Sometimes people become buried under the weight of the world telling them what life ought to be like. You just have to dig deep enough to find the beating heart under all that rubble. That’s all.’

Saba Mahjoor, a Kashmiri living in England, spends her scant free time contemplating life’s vagaries.