Mrs. Bhat’s Kashmiri Fish Dinner
Illustration by Pedro Gomes Mrs. Bhat looked at her reflection in the narrow mirror that was speckled with age.
She smoothed her tight, off-white, crinkly shirt printed with tiny yellow daffodils. It dirties so easily, she thought, sighing. She thought of her son. The soft fuzz on his upper lip kept getting thicker. He was all of 14, not little anymore. He had not reached his aunt’s home yet.
Mrs. Bhat was worried the Indian soldiers must have stopped him. He had taken off on his new bike.
Mr. Bhat was so wrong to get him the bike. Mrs. Bhat fumed inside but quickly calmed herself with a prayer: “My Lord of Lords will protect him; may my life be taken instead of his.”
Last month the soldiers shot a young neighbor who was returning from evening prayers, without any provocation.
Mrs. Bhat crinkled her face, pouting to see the soft lines emerge around her lips. Inspecting her face intensely, she kept flicking off imaginary specks. She could still pass for a thirtysomething rather than a fast-depleting forty. This made her smile. Arching her brows, she tried to lessen the tension in her face. She picked up her cream-colored handbag with shiny interlocked Cs, the tiny Made in China tag swinging untiringly, and walked out of the room.
***
Mrs. Bhat was on a mission to buy Kashir gaad for her annual family fish dinner. It was a tradition she had received from her dear departed mother. She was determined to buy the fish today, after emerging from months of curfew and fretting that spring was almost gone. Summer was never a good time to eat fish; it became hard to digest, her mother would say.
The memory of fish dinners past filled Mrs. Bhat with pride. Her family huddled around the heirloom copper pot bursting with neat rectangular pieces of fish ensconced in dollops of tomato gravy, spicy rings of purple radishes, shiny collard greens, and translucent onions. A lick of tamarind glistening here and there, pieces of ginger peeking out, dried whole Kashmiri chilies and garlic cloves swimming in crimson oil. It was heaven, the sight, the aroma!
Like her mother, Mrs. Bhat only cooked Kashir gaad. Her dead mother’s words still rang in the air: “kuja kashir gaad, panjaib gad chu yewan mokurr shehlun; ath chu gatchan soun kong te zayi; hindustaen gaddan trath.”1
***
Mrs. Bhat once accidentally purchased Punjaib gaad. It was a horrible meal. No one wet more than three fingers, and none went for seconds. She threw away the leftovers that the street cats refused to eat. Mrs. Bhat shuddered at the memory. She sighed and inhaled deeply, her neck disappearing into her chest. She paused her step, feeling she was forgetting something. Retracing back into the room, from the drawer she extracted a small golden bottle of perfume. She doused enough on herself to cause her to cough. She wanted to mask the smell of fish when she would bring it home. Tradition demanded fish should be purchased and
