Minus the mandatory post-wedding ritual of pushing a kalash of rice, or leaving footprints behind or getting someone to do an aarti for us, my husband and I entered the rented home, tired after the journey by Udyan Express. And more so, exhausted by those endless bike rides on our Goa honeymoon just a few days prior. Its neatness was like fresh air.
A lovely floor, neatly tiled. The flat stands out like a long rectangular block, the window of every room facing a single direction - north. There is so much room for air to move and light to flow you can breathe easy. The windows are grilled, a pity. No balcony -- a disaster. But look out of the window and you get to see buildings popping up from other buildings, towers that speak of a tragedy that is Mumbai, some trees in between the buildings that envelope the skyline, the sleepy main road that comes to life when lights dot those numerous towers.
On another side is a row of MHADA (Maharashtra Housing board) bungalows at a higher level. We're on a hill-slope. And these buildings were made after cutting the hill to suit these homes! Disaster.
The green hill-slope meandering itself over these homes paints a gloomy picture of the months to come. This was once a forest. And describing how and when it turned into lifeless concrete needs another story.
Back to the home layout however, you can shut the world out the minute you close its door. Privacy unlimited. What impressed me more about the apartment was that it talks about sharing within the family in many ways with its layout.
The hall opens directly into a kitchen and its aisle does not have a door to clutter the space. If you want access to the bedrooms, better pass by the kitchen that's almost an open-kitchen. The kitchen window above the slab is a longish one, that outrides the need for an exhaust fan.
The slab should have been built better suited to Indian women. For my five feet something height, it certainly tires me a little when I feel like fixing a wooden plank beneath to adjust to the height. But the sink is fairly good in terms of design, and so is the location for a fridge and microwave. An L-shaped slab would have been a good option, but MHADA has obviously not given thought to it.
It has an open feel to it, yet does not look pushy. It's small, though not suffocating.
All through childhood and adult life I have believed the kitchen should be a shared space. A space that should help the family share, not confine it to gendered role-play that so pushes a woman to make it her world, that fiercely protects it from her own family.
Kitchens should be the last places in households to build barriers. They should help break them instead. After all, a good cook can win over many a heart. And a good cook need not be a woman. Men are great cooks too.
For a conservatively grown husband and rebellious me who would be at wits' end when my mother was so possessive about her kitchen, it took the two of us some time to evolve a system in this kitchen. My mother still holds on to her prayer room and kitchen as her world. The only other space I have seen her very comfortable in is the temple.
In my current home though, among the two of us, either of us feels guilty when the other is working alone in that 10 by 10 feet space. And we end up helping each other. When guests are home, they know what's happening out here and feel free to lend a helping hand or make suggestions.
It's very different from the kitchens I have gotten used to seeing. My Ammumma's kitchen at Chromepet, Chennai, was fairly big compared to pigeon holes that realtors cram into flats in the name of budget homes today. But it had the dark and eerie look too. An floor to roof open shelf for the many vessels, Maltova, coffee, tea and my favourite Bournvita cup among the many other steel glasses and cups, and a closed shelf etched into the wall with its wooden door and diamond-cuts mesh which housed pickles and chutneys among other durables.
Some space beneath the cement slab that formed Ammumma's home for the Gods and Goddesses from across India. Another shelf-like space under the slab and next to this Gods' home was a mini-sink, that had an outlet for waste water. Some more shelves under the slab had other paraphernalia that formed her world to feed a family of eight children, a husband and teeming relatives. She even had a bowl-shaped chulha known as kumpeta/ kumpetu in Telugu.
Three people could work in her kitchen easily at once, chopping vegetables while they squatted on the floor, or using the gas stove placed on the slab, while another was busy with the morning prayer.
Cut to the kitchen mother moved into in her initial years after marriage, and it was a heart-break. Hardly any room for one person to be comfortable, less ventilated and crying out in confusion -- its design was a desperation to get out of old-world kitchens with no idea what a modern kitchen meant.
The kitchens back at the DRDO quarters were fairly better. One person could comfortable work in them, although movement was a constraint. The saddest part of all these kitchens has been that they got tucked away in a corner of the household. More private, with hardly any scope for sharing. They were culprits by design.
The present kitchen my mother uses is far better in terms of its positioning in the house design. But by now, she got so used to having her kitchen her way, that the scope for sharing has become zero unless she decides to leave the space to one of us.
Not even a remote sprinkling of commune-like existence could survive such a design that influenced a household culture so much.
Which is why, the kitchen my husband and I use is such a far cry. Kitchens have been debated about extensively in feminism for some time now. And the trend of open island kitchens will take some time to catch up in India, unlike in the US of A where it is a hot favourite now. But steps like these by state housing boards would help further such a culture in a more effective sort of way. I feel empowered by this kitchen.
Hope designs like these pave way for an enhanced culture of sharing.
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