Dal–bhaat, maacher jhol, alu-posto, and sweet sandesh to sign off, this was a typical meal at Halima Didi-r Dining Hall. Nothing special to most passers-by. But, if there were any Bengalis, then the aroma of mustard oil and spices, typical to Bengali cuisine, would swoop up their nose and, like a tornado, whisk them off to the Oz of their homeland.
Every diner here blessed the food, and as a chef, a migrant, a widow, Halima felt proud. She had started her little restaurant, or maybe it should just be called an eating-house, to cater to people who were a long way from their home. She knew from their faces and unabashed burps that they had discovered the homeliness in her food.
Halima herself experienced this many years ago, before she first started cooking in a restaurant, far from home. Her husband’s kidneys had been failing, and a cousin of his was working in Delhi at the time. He felt there was no better medical care they could get than in India, for which it was worth undertaking a long and stressful journey from their native Bangladesh. He had seen dozens of people from Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, even Pakistan, come every day to hospitals in Delhi to have their lungs and limbs checked out.
The journey across borders was not tempting. But, the promise of life was absolute. Her husband would be a new man in three or four months, and they could return to their home and live out the rest of their lives in peace.
Halima had taken her time to decide, but agreed, knowing that without her man she would be more helpless than a lone chick in a nest. He was a patient person, and would tell her that every problem could be resolved by waiting long enough, and she had learnt to curb her own bubbling anxieties and trust him. That they were childless was an anomaly, and this is what kept her in a constant mind-set of “No plan B”. Without him, she would lose her partner, her support, and her borrowed ability to cope. To avoid this at any cost, she packed everything in a big trunk, and in a sling bag put their life’s savings, plus her round steel box containing smaller boxes of spices. Thus, they made the week long journey to Delhi.
They moved into a small enclave of migrants in an urban village surrounded by malls so swank that it was like looking at a tourism poster. The cousin had gotten them settled into a cheap room, sharing a toilet with six others, and absolutely no natural light. The rooms were above a restaurant, which was a big selling point for the otherwise wretched lodgings. They visited a doctor on the second day itself, and started medicines. Halima kept chanting the dosage numbers and times to herself through the day, afraid to miss even one pill. When he noticed this, her husband put his hand on her shoulder and told her to calm down. She tried, but couldn’t be completely rid of her impatience.
This land was at once strange and familiar. The language was different, but she soon started finding similar words between bangla and hindi. The people spoke about politics and culture which she didn’t understand, but she understood that the day’s issues were the same. Hospitals here were better, but corruption sounded the same. For everything new, she could find a familiar peg on which to hang her old worldview.
Where she couldn’t find any familiar ground was with food. For her, these over-spiced stir fries and thick dal was not a meal. Her husband seemed to love it though, and would try to lick his plate clean. But, he was always more agreeable to changes. The taste of so much cheap oil and tomatoes was too heavy for her, and made her insides heat up. There was no homely food to be had anywhere, and nowhere that she could cook her own. Her box of spices remained unopened and air-tight.
A month later it was clear to see that the medicines weren’t working, and his urine was turning dark and cloudy. A referral to a bigger hospital, with a thick stack of test results later, it was confirmed he needed a transplant. Given their financial means, this was a death sentence. All the money they had in the world was going towards a few months of costly medicines. That was all they had anticipated and prepared for.
Hence, he suffered. And she did too. His legs swelled up and his abdomen seared with pain like he was being stabbed repeatedly. She rubbed his stomach with wet towels for some momentary relief, and cleaned soiled sheets many times a day. Food was the last thing on their minds during the last few weeks.
One could attribute it to nostalgia, and not actual hunger, that the dying man’s last wish ended up being that he wanted to have some food cooked by his wife. The hapless woman didn’t know how to fulfil this wish. She planned to talk to the cousin the next day to see if she could cook at his place. But, before the locked aroma of her spices could escape their containers, the sick man’s soul departed his body, unable to wait any longer.
With the journey finally over for him, buried in a foreign land, Halima faced her own terrifying situation. There were just enough rupees left to make a single journey back home, but once there, not enough for anything else. In addition to their meagre savings, they had mortgaged their land for money for the trip and treatment. The plan was that once her husband recovered, they’d return home, he’d get back to earning, and eventually get their land back. They had never birthed any alternative homes.
The cousin suggested she take up jobs as a domestic help, and earn some money before returning. The rates for such work were quite a bit higher in Delhi, and she’d find plenty of Bengali households. He’d ask around and set her up in some by the next week.
This gave her four days to finish mourning, inform her few relatives about her plans, as well as fulfil a dead man’s wish. As a dutiful wife she remembered she owed her departed husband a meal, so she took her box of spices and went downstairs to the restaurant. The owner had shown her sympathy when he saw her and her husband’s suffering, and occasionally even sent some food for them. She asked to use his kitchen and he agreed. She wanted to prepare some of his favourites and then leave some by her husband’s grave, and give the rest to mendicants and fakirs outside the cemetery.
The box of spices was finally opened.
However, everything in the professional kitchen was so enormous that she ended up cooking enough for at least five people. A heaped plateful was taken to the cemetery and the rest was left to be dealt with later. When she returned, however, she saw most of it gone. The restaurant owner had followed the aroma of the food and devoured it. One of his principal patrons, himself from Bangladesh, had smelt the flavours of home and eaten a bellyful too.
Moved to delight by the food, the owner expressed himself poetically, “Dear lady of the utensils, will you please agree to make more of this food in my kitchen, for my guests, every day? I will pay you a fair sum, and also cover your food and lodging. Don’t say no, for the food is irresistible.”
Should she believe her ears? This ordinary food had created such a hubbub and somebody was now offering to pay her to cook it every day. She agreed instantly, the fastest decision she had every taken on her own. Maybe her husband was finally at peace because of the food, and gave her a push from the beyond.
The scent and reputation of her cooking brought droves of her own people to the restaurant. Men and women from Bangladesh, home-sick immigrants, got a much cheaper way to visit their homeland every day. Everybody had come to Delhi for some or the other pressing need, and home food was expectedly sacrificed. But when they discovered somebody was making it for them, it felt like much weight had fallen off their shoulders. Hungry patrons became comrades, and Halima became a local institution. The woman who had come here as the administrator of sponge baths was, in a couple of years, a pillar of their community.
The people who knew her back home would never have believed such a transformation was possible. And they would certainly not believe that the woman, who perpetually lived in fear tomorrow, could make canny and bold business decisions when her livelihood was suddenly at stake. She faced a crisis when the restaurant was sealed by the municipality for operating with improper licenses for a commercial kitchen. But the redoubtable lady managed to talk to the right people and start an establishment of her own in a new location. She had learnt of a colony of Bengali Hindus, where the markets sold everything that a Bengali cook needed, and made deals with suppliers. Wife, to chef, to business owner, her story was even reported in newspapers and blog posts, and appeared in countless selfies.
Christened Halima Didi-r Dining Hall, or Elder Sister Halima’s Dining Hall, it was equal parts restaurant, equal parts community club for Bengalis. East Bengalis, West Bengalis, Muslims, Hindus, Bengali-philes – it was something of a pilgrimage for all. Durga pujas had been planned here, wedding catering orders placed, and births, anniversaries, graduations celebrated. It was even rumoured that a popular Bengali film actor, who had a house in Delhi, ordered takeaway from here, though she’d never tell. Halima had created a nest, and filled it with a family, feeding them all lovingly till their faces were aglow with her hospitality.
Of course, families aren’t happy all of the time, or even most of the time. So also the mood around the eating house was often coloured by the news of the world outside. The largely migrant clientele imbibed all the news of the dispossessed around the world – from Syria to Somalia, and Moldova to Myanmar. The current news topmost on all minds was the issue of the Rohingyas.
Though many news cycles had passed in the years since she had started her life in her adopted country, these recent times had been especially rough for migrants. Much attention was coming their way and even though their adopted land had been warm towards them, allowing them their livelihood and shelter, yet there was a fear that this was all on a timer, and could be rescinded any moment by the stroke of a pen.
At times like these one could distinguish two kinds of refugees – older and newer. The older ones preferred the status quo, having set down roots. Keep-your-heads-down-and-work was the guiding principle. The newer ones had nothing to lose, and the tragedies of migration kept them volatile and prone to taking unbending stands on matters of life and liberty. Life and liberty shouldn’t be considered radical, but when in history have they not been?
Halima was in her fifties. She had built her life and business with every bit of the strength in her character, forged by her own personal tragedy. She firmly saw herself as belonging to the old camp, like old money, eschewing noise and disturbance. Since her place of business was almost a town square, she kept her ears constantly close to the ground. She had grown to be suspicious of new people, ones who would burn their own home, and their neighbour’s, to prove a point. Impetuous and foolhardy, that’s all they were.
To add to her anxieties, while Didi’r Dining Hall was run on legal premises, its ownership wasn’t. Without the correct work permits, it was natural that she couldn’t have become a business owner, that too in the nation’s capital. She couldn’t afford to have any undue attention fall on her place, a concern that had gripped her with the passing months. Being a home away from home for fellow Bengalis was an honourable purpose, but she wouldn’t allow deviants among them to disturb her way of life.
One of the first things she had done was install a new sign at the entrance. “Rights of admission reserved”. But then, who reads signs. The number of people speaking in whispers, and huddled over newspapers long after finishing their meals, kept increasing. It wasn’t in her nature to ask people to leave, that was not good business. But having tables held up with no additional turnover was bad business. What was she to do?
There were more than a few Bengali policemen who had always been fond of dropping in for some meals here. One could even say Halima had them eating out of her hand. The next time she got a friendly man in uniform on her premises she decided to recruit some help. Just as he was about to dig into a big mouthful of rice and fish curry, she startled him. “A lot of boys from the university are coming here nowadays. Can’t you ask them to stay on their campus?” She wanted to target the university students first, the ones she felt had the least reason to rock the boat carrying all her compatriots.
“Huh?” The man was tantalisingly close to relishing everything he held dear, but was forced to hold back his hand.
Using this leverage, Halima continued. “I mean, there are so many canteens there, and they are subsidised as well, God knows why. I need more seats to serve families here. Can’t you do something?”
“What can I do? Everyone’s free to eat where they want. These are just kids.”
His hand managed to get an inch closer before she fired back. “They aren’t just kids. They come from that university – the one with all the communists. They are always looking for trouble. I’ve heard the police say so on TV.”
“Look. There’s no law stopping them from eating here. I can’t help you.”
“But, I’ve put up that sign outside. “No admission without reserved rights” or something like that.”
“That means you can throw them out. Not me.” And before she could say anything he gulped his morsel down, conclusively. But, he could see that his host was disappointed, so he added, “Please try it.”
Halima cheered up.
“But, only after I leave.” And he burped.
That put an end to that. This man was clearly not going to help her. “What good is a fellow Bengali in power?” thought Halima to herself.
As she walked back to the cashier’s counter, she passed the blind man and his son who came here daily. Now, this was the reason she loved her job. It was the honour of service, to devoted families like this. They would order light food, vegetarian, and after the meal the young man would give his father some pills. It seemed there was no woman to take care of them so they ate here. But, a son willing to do so much for his father had Halima on his side. They’d never miss home-cooking while she was around.
“Did you enjoy the stew?” she stopped to ask them.
The young man wasn’t prepared to answer. The father smiled, appreciating the concern of a stranger, and replied “Yes, indeed. It’s very good.”
“Then have some more, with my compliments. For loyal customers.” She asked a waiter to bring them an extra plateful. “Think of this place like your home. You’re welcome here any time. We want more customers like you here.”
The young man was clearly not a talkative one. He just nodded. The old man folded his hands, beaming with joy at such hospitable words. “This truly feels like home to us. The food, the aroma, the chatter, it’s all so familiar.”
Just as she turned away she spotted a newspaper tucked away next to the son. The front page carried news of an official government statement on the Rohingya immigrants, nothing too friendly. Clearly these two decent men were concerned. The old man needed medical care, and the sooner he’d get better the sooner the son could also go back to his own life. The last thing they needed was ruckus. “Uff” she hissed audibly, and scowled at the newspaper. It was not her job to discuss politics, but she wanted them to know she shared their frustration.
She continued her practice of giving them extra helpings of food, and extended this practice to some other regular families. She needed to make the good ones feel more welcome. Quiet and decent ones who contributed well to her revenue, these were the ones in demand – at her sovereign eating house.
Weeks passed and winter began setting in. Night time pulled up closer. Caps and cardigans started covering Halima warmly. To ward off the cold she customarily took to visiting markets and parks this time of the year. The exercise and the crowds of people helped get her mind of the weather and fight the ennui of lonely, cold nights. The glow, in evenings, of the tungsten and kerosene lamps over heaps of the year’s best vegetable produce gave her an incomparable high. She devoured the colours with her eyes and something about the bounteousness gave her soulful comfort.
One day, as she was debating whether to risk buying an entire box of strawberries, afraid that some rotten ones maybe hidden among them, she spotted the blind man and his son in the market. They were at the opposite end of a row of noisy fruit vendors, and were walking in her direction. The son was guiding his father through the throng and had not seen her. She decided she would wait and greet them. After all, such decent people they were, and one couldn’t just ignore them.
Oh, but suddenly what was this? As they passed a small Hindu shrine to Krishna it appeared as if the son closed his eyes and touched his forehead and heart. That was such an unexpected thing to do. And did he look like he then suddenly changed his behaviour, as if realising he had acted out of character? Halima squinted to catch his expression more clearly, but just then a porter carrying cartons blocked her view.
What had she just witnessed?
Of course, there was nothing wrong in bowing to any god, she knew that. Every year Halima went for Durga Puja, with her heart full of love and prayers for the goddess. And when her husband was dying, she had prayed at this very Krishna Shine. But, something was amiss about the way this man did it. Like it was almost an accident, a slip-up. He looked worried that someone had seen him.
No, no, that wasn’t it. He had quickly turned his attention to that porter, to avoid bumping into him. That was much more likely. Wasn’t it? Halima’s mind went into a frenzy trying to justify what she had just witnessed.
“But, both of them wear a tupi,. And they sport beards. The father even dyes his with henna. They look devout. Like my husband. But he himself was a great worshipper of the goddess Durga, as am I. So why can’t they be? And they are in a different country after all, so maybe they are being respectful? And yet, what if they aren’t Muslims at all? Can they be troublemakers trying to infiltrate and create some kind of trouble and mistrust? Is there anything people won’t stoop to anymore?”
She abandoned her neighbourly plans to greet them, and quickly returned to her room. She interrogated everything she knew about those two.
“Blindness can’t be cured by pills. What was I thinking? And why do they always eat vegetarian?”
The younger man never really spoke. In fact, the only times she’d heard him speak was when he was ordering food, or instructing the older man to take his medicine. That’s not how a son would behave towards his father, not when they had to spend so much time together in an unfamiliar place. That’s how strangers would behave when forced to stay with each other. There was something shifty in his behaviour, something that an innocent man wouldn’t have, but maybe a spy would.
“The older man is blind, after all, helpless and dependent. How can he be expected to hold any sway over the other one? Heaven knows, maybe he is being coerced in some way to play along. A poor helpless thing like that.” Her heart melted at the thought of his plight.
From that day it was hard for Halima to attend to anything else when those two came around. She’d monitor their every movement like a hawk, and even tried to read their lips. But, their silences seemed to add more fear. Still waters run deep, and deep waters drown people. She’d frozen with fear once, when the older man looked like he was mouthing the word boma, which meant bomb.
Later, when she was alone she tried saying the word to see if it matched what she saw earlier. “Bo-o-o-m-a-a. Boma. Boma.” Her heart jumped when she heard footsteps outside her door. It would be prudent to just mouth the words, and not utter them. A few more attempts later she was still confused. Boma could just have been bou-ma, or daughter-in-law. Theories kept swirling around in her head. “Why is the younger man here for so long if he’s married? Isn’t he devoted to his wife, just his father? That’s not good, if he’s a householder. Though, a bad householder is better than a terro-…troublemaker. Why aren’t the police doing the detective work instead of poor me?”
She had a business to run, and they should be doing their jobs too. She couldn’t go to them with this evidence, or hunch, after being turned down once already. If she tried again they’d probably do something tactless like throw them in jail, instead of dropping them off at the railway station.
Day after day, the constant monitoring was taking a toll on Halima. Her eyes had started drying because she was staring harder and blinking less. She had gone from trying to track their lips, to the younger man’s eyes. Where were they looking? Were they looking nervous, or guilty? Lips can sit tight, but eyes are tattletales. They would reveal themselves to relentless Halima.
Gradually, her personality almost seemed headed for a split. She’d start her mornings by reassuring herself that she was just over-reacting. But, after work she’d be wondering when the government was going to come banging on her door for harbouring troublemakers. “If you see something, say something” that’s what the Police’s notices said in the newspapers. But, what if you aren’t sure of what you saw? What would you say then?
“Officer, a man prayed to a Krishna idol. Arrest him.”
“Officer, a blind man cannot be cured. Arrest him.”
“Officer, he’s taking care of this old man instead of his wife. Why won’t you arrest him?”
Her hours of restful sleep at night were diminishing. She had recurring dreams, of being accused by her old school teacher of having stolen pieces of chalk from the classroom. Nobody listened to the small child that she was, and there was nothing she could say that would make the teacher change her mind. Halima would wake up full of dread and anxiety, reminding herself that she was no longer a child, then lulling herself back to sleep.
She started praying that the father and son would just go away soon, like the bleak days of winter. How long could the treatment, or whatever they had come for, last? Very few of her customers were regular beyond six months. But, she couldn’t bear this anxiety for that long. Once she found herself praying that if the older man’s health couldn’t improve, may it get worse. But, memories of her husband charged across her mind, and she was wracked with guilt. So she took to praying for his recovery and an end to their problems so they would just leave. Once, she even shut her eyes and prayed in front of the Krishna shrine, maybe he was the arbitrator in this case. Of course, she made sure she wasn’t facing it, lest people see what she was up to. No gesture was innocent anymore.
Someone up there heard her eventually and there came a night when the two did not show up for dinner. Halima waited, not about to celebrate prematurely. The next night again they didn’t turn up. Nor the next. Matters seemed to have been resolved without any harm or foul. She finally breathed a sigh of relief and wished they’d never darken her threshold again.
The week after they left, Halima could give her attention to the other new people in her eating house. Except, these were now more like playful distractions compared to what she had gone through the past few weeks. These customers had loose lips, and nothing about their countenance looked hardened. There was no chance that they could start any trouble. She had looked into the fallen soul of a desperado, and nobody else matched that air of quiet menace.
But, wait, did she just hear that word again? Boma. Maybe she had not swept out the cobwebs in her mind well enough.
No, there it was again. Somebody else also said boma. She broke ranks and asked the bunch who said it, “What’s that you are talking about? Whose bouma?”
“Oh didi, not bouma … boma,” explained one of them. “They found a cache of explosives and cartridges outside town, in an abandoned car on the highway. The car was a stolen one.”
Another disgruntled one added, “They’ll blame this on us before any investigation. They’ll come knocking on our doors now. Better lie low.”
“Don’t be so bleak,” said a third. “Knee jerk reactions don’t help anyone. Let’s see what happens. If anyone does come knocking, then honesty is the best policy. What do we have to hide?”
Halima could barely hold herself together when she heard all this. She had everything to hide and everything to lose. Oh lord, what have they done? They left but now a trail would lead the police right back to her eating house.
Her eyes darted around her establishment. More new faces, and she didn’t know what they were speaking. Any of them could be policemen in plainclothes. They’ll ask her questions. They’ll search her premises and look into her papers. They’ll see she’s living on borrowed time in a borrowed land.
“Lord, Lord, Lord – what have you done?”
That night, she had an especially vivid dream session, and resilience gave up on Halima. A sneaky voice spoke up in her head, “In matters of national security, you don’t have a voice or rights. You will become a persona non-grata, no longer a business-owner. You will be culpable. The story for you ends here, Halima. Get ready to re-join your husband.”
A surge of pain went through her chest and wrapped around her spine. She broke out in a cold sweat and panic started mounting every second. She tried getting up but she suddenly felt paralysed. A couple of attempts later she managed to sit up. Her room was darker than she’d ever known. She stumbled her way out of the room. The bed sheet got pulled off and was half lying on the floor. A bottle of water she had knocked over was rolling back and forth, back and forth, trying to achieve some kind of equilibrium.
A week from that day, Halima packed up and caught a train to Kolkata, onward to Dhaka, taking all her belongings with her. The eating house changed hands, and went to her previous boss, the man in whose restaurant she got her start.
When the old man and his son came back, the son noticed the woman was missing. This unknown person was sitting behind the counter, deeply engrossed with his mobile phone.
“Where’s Halima didi?” the younger one asked one of the waiters.
“I’m not really sure where she went. She sold this place to that man and went away.”
The old man was distressed by this news. “But, she was such a nice, friendly lady. What happened to her that she just left?”
The waiter poured water into their glasses and explained, “All I know is that about a week ago she felt she was having a heart attack, immense pain in her chest. So she was rushed to the hospital. Thankfully, it turned out to be intense heartburn and nothing else. But, she wasn’t the same after that, always shaking her head and glaring at the customers. “I can’t take this anymore. Anyone could be a troublemaker.” That’s all she kept saying till yesterday, when she just left.”
Disappointment was writ clearly on all their faces. “It is our misfortune that we weren’t here to greet her one last time,” said the old man. “We had gone home, to Dhaka, you see.”
The son added, “My father was missing home, and we got the doctor’s permission to travel. Mother was overjoyed to see us. And when she heard how we had been well-fed and taken care of by Halima, she sent back this box of sweets for her. From Dhaka. From Home.”