(This article is part of 'Ways of eating': a mini-series on food in Southasia)
What could be an academic's concern for the niceties and nuances of food and eating? At the same time, as a blind woman, how did I engage with the complexities and drudgery of cooking to turn it into my passion? For those who are familiar with my work and my interests, this piece may come as a surprise. Admittedly, I am no food connoisseur. Yet, I feel compelled to write about my experience and narrate what led me to tread a hitherto untraversed terrain, a transformation which is not sudden, mystical and inexplicable but gradual and conscious, aimed at understanding who I am and breaking away from the various symbolic constraints that determine and dictate my life.
I was born with a genetic eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa in the burgeoning small town of Sidhpur in Gujarat in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim milieu. In due course, my parents migrated to Kolkata in search of greener pastures. Their chief concern was to make sure I received a good education. I went to an inclusive school and was in the midst of kids who could see and read and write and run around. As I grew up, I became cognisant of my disability and wanted to withdraw. I was an introvert – shy, timid, reclusive, always shunning the presence of too many people while despising exclusion, deprivation, and marginalisation.