Pot of gold at the end of mourning
THE summer of 1986 — Cindi Lauper’s True Colours was blasting on the radio and, even when it was not, the song stuck in my head. I arrived home from school to find our possessions tossed carelessly on the driveway. The rent had not been paid again. Armed with black rubbish bags and cardboard boxes, we began to pack our things. Neighbours and family arrived not to help, but to stare at our misfortune.
We spent the night at my aunt’s house and returned the next day to find people “shopping” through our possessions — cutlery, crockery, appliances and even clothing. But there was something that was taken from my mom that tormented me for years: her biryani pot. She had bought it at a party and got a tongue-lashing for doing so.
After a lengthy period of paying for it, the pot arrived— only to start more grumbling. My dad insisted that the pot would be used to prepare a meal at his funeral.
Then the pot found a new home. It was hijacked by an aunt and stood in her kitchen. It was never spoken of and became the invisible cooking utensil. Whenever her friends commented on it, I could feel my blood pressure rising.
Every time I saw it, memories of the day we lost our home flooded back. In those days, you were allowed to cry only if you were bleeding. So I cried on the inside. And her biryani never tasted good.
I married in 1999 and expected my aunt to arrive with the pot. She arrived with a set of cheapies she had bought for R300. It finally set in — the pot would never be returned.
After years of mourning, I hit the jackpot. In 2011, I was appointed brand ambassador of the same cookware company that manufactured my mom’s prized biryani pot.
I was given every cookware unit I could wish for — big, small, short, tall, electric and even custom-made. A beautiful team working in Cape Town healed my childhood aches. My mom and I still chat about it, but no longer with heavy hearts. I have cut the emotional baggage and continue on my cooking adventures knowing I have cookware for life.