The secret behind my mother’s pandemic special pasta sauce. A story of courage in the kitchen.

Mom’s pasta. PC: Rekha Karmakar

 “Just two teaspoons of oil and pasta sauce,” typed my mother proudly as she posted the picture of the pasta, that she had made for her dinner, in our family whatsapp group. 

“I have been making a number of tasty dishes with very little oil of late”, she told me the other day when I called her. “I should document them.”

My mother had a heart attack, combined with a fall, around 8 years back. That could have been quite fatal. She came out of it thanks to the selfless and sincere efforts made by the first responders (my brother’s friends, the house-help and then my brother and sister in law) and the doctors at the Fortis, Gurgaon, and lots of prayers and protection and good karma.

She has lived by herself ever since my brother and I moved out of Kolkata. The incident, what we would call a faara in Bengali, left her physiologically and psychologically shaken. It took her quite a few years before she felt confident and capable enough to stay by herself again. Till then, she would shuttle between my brother’s house in Gurgaon, ours in Mumbai and, when in Kolkata, she would stay with my grandmother who lives by herself too. 

A couple of years back, my mother finally took baby steps in regaining her independence and spent some time in her own apartment. The one she purchased after my father had passed on and the one she had brought my brother and me up in. 

She had two house-helps to help her with daily chores. One to cook. One to clean. They were her lifelines. Even if they made her ‘BP shoot up.’ She found other coping mechanisms such as an auto rickshaw driver who would drive her around for errands…and so life continued.

Then the pandemic hit us and she happened to be in Kolkata then. There was no house-help because of the both lockdown restrictions and her own health worries related to age and co-morbidity. 

“The continuous messaging about old people being at the highest risk, makes things worse for our spirits,” she once told me wryly.

We were worried for her. Wondered how she would cope.

Well, cope she did. Cooking and cleaning by herself, managing to get provisions through folks who ran errands. Till a time came when we could help a bit as online shopping sites began to deliver in the part of Kolkata where she lives. I finally convinced her to allow one of her house-helps to come to work. 

“How long will you carry on? Your health will give in,” I told her. Playing the elder son card as my brother was not convinced about this.

She gave me an update every evening on what the house-help did, or did not do. When the lady did not bunk, that is! My mom had to change her house-help mid-way thanks to absenteeism and as she says everyday when I call her and ask her about her house-help, “she came to work today. Who knows about tomorrow?”

My mother decided to continue to cook herself even after the house-help came back to work. “Safer this way,” she said. 

I suspect that she has begun to enjoy cooking! She cooks everyday and, at the age of 72, taught herself how to make rotis too.

Which is why I feel that using ‘just two spoons of oil’ is not the most creditable thing about the pasta that she made. That courage and determination are the key ingredients in her recipe.

I am sure that you will agree!

PS: Before you ask, none of us is flying currently due to the health risk posed by the pandemic, especially to my mother, and hence we remain connected from different cities,

My mother, Rekha Karmakar, has a blog. It is called Tabulous Mom. Do give it a read and drop in a comment if you can. That would cheer her up.