Cooking 1 Poem by Prathibha Nandakumar

Gas cooker mixer grinder toaster grater heater peeler washer
The housewife is the main consumer
Today’s show windows are tomorrow’s must have kitchens
Cleaned rice dhal all packed powdered boiled baked dried
preserved, sealed, cultured, processed, refined, filtered all instant.
Just add water, simply cut open and serve, just eat, just buy it.
All grandma’s recipes take a back seat losing out to
Noodles, pizza, French fries, Chinese, American chop sue, schezwan,
North Indian, continental, Italian …..
Don’t give in to sentiments, let go in some pesticides,
adulterated, poisoned, manufactured
One can always win over the bottled death.
Consume with in six months, preserve for three
months, eat with in a week, refrigerate for seven days,
mountaineers eat this, also for those who cant climb stairs
Anyone who cannot follow up
are prescribed two capsules and a tablespoon of powder
for four thousand and five hundred rupees
plus some ten thousand for gym to stand at a spot yet walk miles.
Everyone wants kareena kapoor waist
doctors engineers artistes
journalists latest models hot favorite hits.

Then why the heck all this fuss
on a Sunday morning?
It seems, today is some festival,
must customarily prepare some godforsaken stuff ….


Cooking -2

Cooking is my passion
an outlet to all my frustrations

wash, mash, skin, chop, grate, grind,
roast, fry, sauté, boil, kneed,
beat, churn and pack into the plate

for all to smack, licking fingers,
exclaiming aha! its so good!


Translated from Kannada by the poet