Book review: 'Chef' depicts the beauty and terror of Kashmir

Chef
Jaspreet Singh
Penguin
248 pages
Rs 450

In his award-winning debut novel, Canada-based author Jaspreet Singh writes in simple, spare, but evocative language about the turmoil in war-torn Kashmir as seen through the eyes of Kirpal Singh, known as Kip, a former military chef.

Kip returns to Srinagar after 14 years to cook the wedding banquet of Rubiya, daughter of general Ashwini Kumar, governor of Kashmir and former commander-in-chief, Northern Command, for whom he had worked as a chef for five years.

Kip, dying of cancer, has his own reasons for accepting the general’s invitation. He hopes that his cooking will please Kumar who would then refer him to specialists in the military hospital for treatment. Kip, full of self-loathing, also seeks to lay to rest the ghosts of the past by returning to Srinagar to resolve certain unfinished matters with the general.

Kip, driven by the ghost of his father, a highly respected army officer who perished on Siachen, seeks a surrogate father figure. General Kumar, hailed as the Hero of Kargil and the Hero of the Siachen Glacier, wins Kip’s devotion and loyalty. And so does chef Kishen, who manages the general’s kitchen. Kishen becomes friend and mentor to Kip, introducing the naïve 19-year-old virgin to the world of food, music, and women (although Kip never sleeps with a woman in the book). But Kishen’s politically rash and provocative behaviour results in his demotion and transfer to Siachen, and Kip replaces him as chef.

Kishen is the moral centre of the book (“chef dared to question the universe.”) and his red journal — in which he jots his thoughts and recipes — assumes talismanic significance for Kip, especially after the older man dies in Siachen in a doomed bid to rouse the conscience of the army generals and politicians. (“Chef died for a big nothing.”).

Kip remembers Kishen’s words, “You are my beloved, and you are also my witness.” As Kishen’s witness, Kip learns about deep-seated corruption in the army, the coffin scam, the ration scam, the unequal treatment of officers and soldiers, the staging of fake battles for winning gallantry medals, arms deals, and human rights abuses.

The contents of Kishen’s journal shake Kip’s allegiance to the army, to India, and to the general. The arrival of Irem, a Kashmiri Muslim woman from Pakistan, who is being interrogated by the army as a suspected terrorist, undermines Kip’s allegiance even further. The unrequited love of both country and woman deepens Kip’s sadness, while also feeding his shame, anger, and guilt. The cancer eating Kip’s body is mirrored in the cancer of corruption, violence, injustice, and fear that is corroding India, and especially Kashmir.

“The cancer that has grown inside me is not my fault. This country caused it. Despite that it has no shame,” he thinks.

And later, “I am cancer, and I have arrived in Kashmir.”
Rubiya, the lonely, motherless little girl with whom Kip had once shared a special bond, grows up to be a famous poet. Her decision to marry Shahid Lone, a Pakistani Muslim, displeases her father. “Sometimes I think the desire for the enemy is more than the desire for our own,” he tells Kip. “No one knows this better than you do.”

The wedding is postponed, but not cancelled, as the past catches up with the present (albeit at a devastating cost). Rubiya, determined to overcome her “fear of the border”, takes the bus across the border to meet her fiancé. To Kip, she is the harbinger of a new hope.

Jaspreet Singh explores the physical and emotional landscape of Kashmir — its beauty and terror — with restraint and sensitivity in this affecting and moving novel. The story often unfolds in a series of disjointed episodes as Kip’s mind, with its “islands of lucidity”, grapples with memories, reveries, dreams, and hallucinations.

A quiet and contemplative man, he prefers cooking to brutal politics: “When people talk religion and politics, I turn my thoughts to food.” Food can help bridge the religious divide, he believes: “In Kashmir the Hindus avoid sexy onions and garlic; they love the taste of heeng (asafetida) and the non-incestuous fennel and ginger. Muslims find heeng (and its sulphurous odour) unbearable. They adore garlic, green praans, garam masala, and on certain occasions, malwa flowers.

So there is a ‘Hindu’ rogan josh, and a ‘Muslim’ rogan josh.” Kip’s finest accomplishment is developing a recipe combining these two great traditions. The recipe is included.

Malini Sood is a Delhi-based editor and writer.