DUBBA LOVE : AN IRINJALKUDA TALE




Before we start, answer me –“what in the whole world bind souls together? ”
Come ‘on , give it a try. . .!
Oh no…!  You are thinking so philosophically and obviously that is not the answer!

The answer is foooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood! Because food links and glues people miraculously! If you are not so convinced, let me garnish this answer with personal flavours.

Two years ago, when I came to Irinjalakuda as a fresher to join Christ College, I was just a tall, lean girl with an unappreciated appetite! I still remember how my neighbours and relatives used to gift me that awful look which made my blood boil! I was so fed up of replying their nasty queries and comments. But now, people would definitely spot me as a baby elephant who knows nothing but to fall upon food. Even when disappointment deep boils my head, I find solace with food.

Madhuri Dixit of Irinjalakuda!
So,this must be the right time to mention about some really special ladies in my life. Apart from my mother, that lady who has always amazed me by the way she serves love is Mrs.Rekha Ajaykumar aka Madhuri Dixit (as she once mentioned herself)! My gorgeous 'Madhuri Dixit' is so brilliant to decipher one’s food habits at a single meeting and she remembers to serve everyone with exactly what they love to have and I think it is the real toughest mathematics! She is the one to tell me that the flavour of a dish is in the amount of heart you put  into its preparation. Many a times, I have received her DUBBA love and everytime, I fall for her food and heart, all over again. Through amma’s and her food, I was realizing myself by excavating my very own traditional food interests. The food these ladies prepare have always given me bigger lessons, happiest feelings and kinder gestures.  Just a bite of my dearest ladies' food would assure you a universe of love. No matter how far I go, I have their heart and they have mine too. They are the reason why I would always love to return back to my roots and be my real self-having some rice with maampazhakaalan and chena mezhukkupuratty. Also, I differ to say that I am foodgasmic,I am just divinely foodyogic!


As these images of food, motherhood and women fills within , there is this Japanese movie that keeps popping up in my head- Little Forest: Summer/Autumn. It’s all about Japanese food culture of growing, preparing and cooking one’s own food and the visual treatment is helplessly delicious! It is a turn back into all that events which give way to the food on one’s plate. The movie which graciously glorifies foodie-ism also nurtures some real inevitable self-reliance lessons that one acquires only from a parent, precisely the female. The young, delicate, strong-willed and pretty lady of the film gets back to her home town and recreates some food moments with herself which she once lived with her mother. Those very natural preparations include even the nutella that the world craves deeply! It was then I realized that everything which we very much crave for, due to some pleasing foreign features,indeed is a dearest native essence well dressed up in foreign ways! The whole film pictures food in a much more broader sense - as an art, a legacy, a blend of emotions and tranquility, itself! The film also employs silence as music when the lenses catch the colors of nature, people and savouring dishes. Before spilling the beans any further to those who haven’t watched it yet, let me leave one precious clue about the beautiful message into which the film merges- “food is a mirror of your heart.”


“Every tale has a heart with emotions and food is where our tale begins because food is into which many have poured their heart’s finest emotion.”
Unapologetically, a forgetful tintinnabulation in an explosive world.

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