Work of Their Hands

Embers glowed orange and vermilion below the heavy bottomed karahi. Spices sizzled and smoked, filling the small cyan concrete room with a pungent, nutty aroma. The woman of the house crouched on her haunches, slicing green chilies lengthwise on a knife protruding from the floor. Skillfully her fingers grasped the chilies, slid their flesh apart, and collected them in a bowl next to her bare toes. Her cochineal kurta dragged on the packed dirt floor as she turned from the chilies to the pile of papery shallots in a basket on the floor. Surrounding her were baskets full of okra and eggplant and bowls fresh sliced tomatoes and potatoes, each cut uniformly and meticulously. Looking into her wok-like karahi and sniffing the spices, she urgently sliced the allium and added it to the pan.

She rose from crouching on the floor, and peered into her pot, stirring vigorously without a slight cough from the smoking onions. Her sweat from the hot fire gathered quickly, and she wiped it from her face using her shaal. Opening her favorite jar of mango pickle, she inhaled deeply, enjoying the sweet, spicy fragrance. This was an occasion fit for such a delicacy.

The clang of metal pounding metal was as frequent in her kitchen as the sizzle of potatoes in oil. Outside her door, a man worked with her husband shaping brass vessels for water and food. His sweat was as thick as hers, gathering on his shoulders, neck, and back as rhythmically he drummed the brass into a perfect cylinder. Like her knife protruding from the floor, a huge iron stake protruded from the earth and he maneuvered the basin, then banged it against the stake with his hammer. Rotating the brass over and over, he forged a large, sturdy container, removed it from the stake, and laid it to rest with the other pots he’d finished this week by the entryway.

The woman heaped out plates of rice, carefully added the mango pickle, and served her curries and dal in single bowls with ardor. Shooting in the indigo and lavender sitting room, I interviewed this family’s daughter. At only 23 she is a journalist and human rights activist, and is also studying in university. Over the clang of the metalwork, she explained softly in Nepali about becoming involved in human rights due to discrimination.

As she spoke about not being allowed in the kitchen of homes as a child, for fear she would pollute the food, her mother entered bearing heaping plates of rice and a smile that could warm Greenland. Putting the camera to the side, we accepted the food with bowed heads and empty stomaches.

More and more bowls arrived, and the woman of the house returned to fill our home made plates and water glasses. At that lunch both her parent’s work joined and synthesized a new story; one about the respect and reverence for foreign guests, one about the cooperation of family, and one about the work of their hands.