Monsoon Summer by kaoruhana
Cooking Lessons
Kagome stopped the video she was listening to, recording the important information from it, and chanced a glance at the clock. It was nearing seven-thirty which meant she should probably start to pack up and make her way down soon. This past week had gone by much better than the last one. She had visited self-help groups that were in either the beginning or middle stages. They weren’t clusters yet but they were still self-sufficient. At the same time, she had warmed up to her new surroundings as well.
The trip to the beach with Sesshomaru and his daughter had been a lot of fun. They had spotted a peacock and Kagome was awed by the sight of the majestic creature. It had been about ten feet away and scurried away when it noticed them but, she had still a real peacock in the wild. That was something not most people could attest to. After that, Rin and Sesshomaru had accompanied her to dinner at Okha Mahel. Apparently, as long as Sesshomaru paid for their dinners, the two were welcome to eat with her anytime. Rin had kept her busy by asking her questions and chattering non-stop. Her uncle had tried to stop her once or twice but eventually gave up. She smiled as she remembered Rin begging her to come visit their house which, she was going to do tomorrow.
Saving her work, she stretched her arms and got off her bed. A lizard crawled on the wall across from her and she paid it no mind. The reptiles still scared her but she had come to understand what the locals did. Best to live with the creatures rather than chase them away. She made her way to the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water to freshen up. That and wash her hands the best she could. She didn’t want to have to wash her hands again before dinner. Done with her tasks, she checked the room again before grabbing her cellphone and keys. Pocketing them after she locked the door, she made her way down.
In the past week, a few things had changed in her routine. The day after Sesshomaru and Rin had dined with her, she had asked Sunil if he could teach her Hindi. The receptionist agreed but only if she helped him with his English. To Kagome this seemed like a fair trade and she agreed to meet him every day a little before dinner for their lessons. She could now greet people, talk about the weather (at least in terms of hot and cold), and ask basic questions pertaining to names and such. As a bonus, she had taught Sunil some Japanese. It had been worth it, especially when she had seen Sesshomaru’s face on Wednesday morning as Sunil greeted him in Japanese. He had looked at the two of them, shook his head, and said that as long as theirs was just a learning lesson, he was okay with it.
She descended the stairs to find Sunil looking a little tired as he answered a phone call. She waited patiently for him to finish before he addressed her. “How are you today?” He greeted smiling at her. “Let’s see if you can answer in Hindi.”
“Badiya.” She answered with a grin. He nodded.
“I had a good day too.” Glancing at the clock, he sighed. “I have to leave for a meeting with the hostel receptionist soon.” Kagome frowned and shuffled her feet awkwardly.
“Should we postpone today’s lesson then?” She asked. He shook his head and pulled out a notebook writing down the numbers one to twenty and then an English pronunciation of their spelling.
“One to twenty.” He stated pointing to them. “Let’s see how many we can get through today.”
By the time Sunil had to leave, Kagome had managed to pronounce all the numbers at least once. She had only gotten the first ten down though. Determined to see it through, she promised Sunil that she would practice and that he should look forward to her progress. Satisfied, he pointed to the doors of the dining room. Kagome hesitated- it was seven fifty and dinner wasn’t supposed to start till eight. Was this the right thing to do?
“Don’t worry.” Sunil assured her. “Everything is ready already. Just go in.” Taking his words as permission, Kagome bid him goodbye and entered the dining room.
The smells from the dining room today were different and Kagome was curious. Approaching the buffet table, she looked at the whiteboard behind it. One of the employees was writing something on there- probably the dinner menu. He turned from it, shocked to see her there and she read what he had written. Noodles, except they were spelled as noddles. She smiled softly and pointed to the whiteboard. He looked at it then back at her before uncovering a tray that held noodles. Maybe words would help.
“N-O-O-D-L-E-S.” She spelled out watching his face turn to one of understanding. Hastily, the dining room worker turned back to the whiteboard and erased his words. Turning, he looked at her expectantly and she spelled out the word again watching him write it.
“Manchuria and soup?” He uncovered two more dishes and then a final one. “Fried rice.” She wasn’t surprised he knew how to say the English words- they had probably learned only the English names of the foods. If people in Japan did it, she didn’t see why they wouldn’t do it in a place like India.
Kagome looked at the food. It looked- for lack of better words to compare it to- like a different version of the Chinese food she had eaten at home. There were noodles- lo mein style but not made with the same sauces that regular Chinese cooking was made of. The vegetables were the same though. Her eyes looked towards the manchuria when she noticed that there were two cartons of it placed side by side. Curious, she looked closer as a hand came into her line of view.
"Chicken, vegetable.” The one to the left was chicken. Considering that it had now been almost two weeks since Kagome had eaten meat, she wasted no time and scooped a few of the fritters into her plate. Then she placed a decent helping of noodles on her plate. She took a bowl of soup and hesitated looking at the rice. Deciding that it couldn’t hurt, she put that on her plate as well and took a seat. To her surprise, as soon as she did, another server asked her what kind of ice cream she liked.
"Vanilla?” She stated not sure why they were asking the question. Shrugging, she took a bite of the manchuria and promptly sighed in bliss.
The manchuria tasted like meat and spices and veggies and fried food. It tasted so good and she knew that she was definitely going to enjoy today’s meal. She inhaled the manchurias, devoured the noodles, and managed to clear her soup in a few sips. The fried rice too was exquisite. And as much as she was full, she couldn’t help but look at the manchurias and noodles longingly. By this time, the other guests had begun making their way into the room and were also eating dinner. She didn’t want to seem like a glutton but she couldn’t help it. She stood and took another plate grabbing some more of the fritters and the noodles before sitting down. And after she finished, she was shocked to see the servers bring out ice cream to the dining room guests. By the time she left, she was stuffed and feeling slightly guilty at having eaten so much.
She opened the door to her room and turned on the lights before collapsing on the bed she had claimed as her own. Moments later her phone rang and she pulled it open to see that it was a phone call from home. She couldn’t think of a better ending for the night. Good food followed by a long talk with her family. All that was missing was a good movie. She glanced at the television in her room as she said hello to her family. Maybe a good movie was still in the running.
* * * * *
It was at ten the next morning when Kagome stepped out of her place of residence to make her way to Sesshomaru’s house. First, she had to greet him and Rin who were waiting for her at the Okha Mahel gates. Rin was dressed in a pink sundress and was currently twirling around her uncle who kept an eye on her. Kagome approached them and waited to be acknowledged. It was the little girl who did so first. She stopped in her play and hopped over to Kagome to take her hand.
“Kagome! Guess what, guess what? Today, Uncle said you were going to spend the entire day with us. We’re going to eat lunch together and then play and then go to the beach and then eat dinner together and- “ she paused to take a huge breath, “and then we’re take you home.” Kagome blinked having barely followed the girl’s excited chatter. She made sense of enough of it however.
“Yes Rin, I’ll be spending the day with you and your uncle.” She looked up towards Sesshomaru who greeted her with a nod and began to walk towards the street his house was located on. All along their walk Rin talked to Kagome. She asked the young woman what she had done that week and explained what she had done herself. She also informed Kagome that her uncle was going to cook them lunch and that she was going to learn Japanese from her uncle.
“Kagome- do you know Japanese?” Kagome looked down at Rin quizzically.
“Yes I do Rin. Why do you ask?” Rin looked down at her feet for a moment before turning her gaze back up to Kagome.
“Can you help me? Uncle says I’m getting better but that I still have to learn a lot.” She stuck her lips in a pout and let out a little sound of protest. “I want to become the best though!” Kagome bit her lip to stop the laugh that was threatening to come out of her mouth. Rin was just so cute!
“We’re home Rin.” The little girl squealed, letting go of Kagome’s hand and bounding up the small walkway to wait by their front door. Sesshomaru and Kagome followed her at a more sedate pace. He unlocked the door and let her in. There was a little entrance way and Kagome noticed it served the purpose that genkans usually did in Japanese houses.
The house was small and quaint. There was a living room to the right and a dining room and open kitchen to the left. Across from her was a hallway which she assumed led to the bedrooms and bathroom. She followed them to the living room and sat down on the sofa. Rin immediately raced forward and brought out her practice Kanji books so that she could show Kagome what she was working on and needed help with. Sesshomaru took a seat next to her and instructed her to pull out her laptop.
“How was your weekend?” He began noticing that Rin had finally found a distraction in one of her coloring books. It seemed her Japanese lessons could wait.
“Good, yours?” He shrugged.
“It was good.” Turning to her, he made sure to make eye-contact as he spoke. “I got a call from my superiors yesterday. The Japanese heads of HORD go through three year cycles. I…I forgot that I have reached the end of my three year tenure.” She nodded not following his words. Did that mean he was leaving soon and that she was going to working under someone else?
Sesshomaru continued. “Due to the fact that we do have a Japanese intern this year, it has been decided that I will stay on in my role until your internship is finished. Instead of the six weeks left to you, you now have five. The last week, the HORD office will take you on a tour of the nearby areas and we will be making a stop in Delhi for some sightseeing.” She narrowed her eyes.
“We?” Sesshomaru sighed and put his face in his hands. He was obviously not pleased with whatever it was he was about to say.
“We as in, you, Rin, and I. It has been decided by the head office that I will train my replacement for three weeks and then I am supposed to leave. I have to return to my corporate job in Japan.” Kagome stayed silent as she processed this information. She supposed it made sense for them all to leave together. She was now curious about HORD though. What kind of corporate things were they running in Tokyo?
“Wow. Um…” She trailed off, not sure what she could say. Sesshomaru broke the awkwardness by asking her to show him the work she had done so far. She quickly opened the documents she was typing detailing her case study and gave him the laptop so that he could peruse the material.
“You need to provide more information about how significantly the beneficiaries’ lives have changed.” He stated after a bit. “For example, you wrote about a woman who managed to get accepted into the SHG and used the money to send her kids to school and come out of poverty through financial independence. I want more numbers in her case. How drastic of a change was it? See if you can get some pictures of before and after. Is the house she lives in new? Or if it isn’t- are there any additions to it that are new?”
“More numbers?” Kagome stated thinking about his advice. “So if I explained that this woman- I think her name was Kimi-Bein- went from being dependent on her neighbors to just put food on the table to inviting her neighbors over for dinner and still being able to send her children to school and buy enough material to stitch kurtas it would sound better?” Sesshomaru took a moment to understand the sentence but nodded when he did.
“Okay I can do that. Anything else?”
“What sort of data have you collected?” She quickly pulled up an excel document.
“This is just a rough way of organizing stuff. I’m compiling things such as age, number of family members, education, family income before and after training, things like that.” He nodded taking a quick look at the information presented.
“You have no graphs yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Next week, on Saturday, you will make a preliminary progress report to me, Mira-Bein, and Dungar-Bhai. For that, I want you to prepare a short presentation and involve a few graphs in it.” He handed her back the laptop. “If you have any questions, you should contact me.”
“Oh. I will.” She took her laptop and began to work on the advice he gave her.
“Is there anything you can’t eat?” Startled by the question, she took a moment to answer.
“Shellfish.”
“Very well- I shall start on lunch then.” Sesshomaru disappeared into the kitchen leaving Kagome and Rin alone in the living room.
“Kagome- do you like to color?” The young woman looked at Rin who was pointing to the book she was currently occupied with. “I like to but Uncle doesn’t like it so much. What about you?” Kagome saved her work and closed her laptop before sitting on the floor next to the little girl.
“Well I haven’t colored in a while so I might be rusty. But I used to love it.” She looked at the book which showed a familiar bear and piglet. “Do you like Pooh Bear Rin?”
“I love him! But Roo’s my favorite.” She looked at her companion. “Who’s your favorite?” Kagome winked at Rin and help up a pinkie.
“Promise not to tell anyone?” Rin nodded, intertwining her pinkie finger with Kagome’s. “Rabbit is my favorite. When I was little I used to love to garden and I helped my mother with the vegetable patch she grew. I was just like Rabbit and I would sit by the patch all day, shooing away anyone that wanted to stop by.”
“What did you grow?”
“Hmm let’s see- I think some carrots, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes.”
“Ooh!” Rin handed Kagome a crayon. “Tell me more about the vegetable patch.” Instructions given, she turned back to coloring leaving Kagome to stare at her red crayon.
When she finally managed to escape Rin a while later, it was for water. She headed to the kitchen, where she knew Sesshomaru was, intent on asking him for some. She hovered at the entrance to the kitchen watching him work by the stove. He was chopping something- from where she was it looked like a long, pointy vegetable. He turned, sensing her presence and asked her if she needed something.
“Some water?” Sesshomaru took a glass from a nearby cupboard and then went to the fridge where he stored bottles of mineral water. He filled up the glass with water from the bottle and handed it to Kagome before he went back to cooking.
“You must like Indian food a lot right?” Kagome asked. She supposed that five years of living in India might have changed his pallet a little.
“South Indian food.” Sesshomaru corrected seeing her eyes widen in surprise.
Honestly, Kagome felt a little embarrassed currently. She knew India wasn’t one culture but she’d thought of it that way. She’d kind of forgotten that there was more to the country than what she saw here. It was just like Japan she mused. While most people thought of Tokyo, she thought Kyoto and Osaka, and Hokkaido were all part of Japan too.
“What’s it like?” Kagome asked curious as Sesshomaru put a dish resembling a dutch oven on the stove and poured some oil into it.
“Simple.” He answered going to the spice box. “The masala curries don’t have a lot of gravy or onion in them, they eat rice almost as much as Japanese do, and they don’t put potatoes in every curry dish.” She laughed at that. Kagome had to admit potatoes were almost a staple vegetable here. She herself had grown quite tired of seeing them.
“And you’re making something like that?” She asked as he washed the vegetable. “What is that by the way?”
“Okra- ladies finger. It’s fried and eaten. It tastes quite good.” She had never seen the vegetable but knew that Sesshomaru wasn’t going to feed her something dangerous. Still, she hoped it was as tasty as it sounded.
“Can I help?” Sesshomaru looked at her and then at the stove. He called her over and she stood next to him as he opened the spice box he had. Kagome had never seen a spice box like his. It was a circular box with six smaller circular bowls inside and was easy to use. She wondered where he’d gotten it and what it was.
“In South Indian food, often times the only flavors are spices such as mustard seeds, cumin, urud dal- a type of lentil, chili powder, and salt. It’s nice to eat something without the heavy masala flavor running throughout.” Kagome nodded watching as he added the lentils, mustard seeds, and cumin to the dutch oven.
“Do you need to add the okra now?” She asked watching the spices fall in. They didn’t sizzle which surprised her.
“No, when the mustard seeds start popping, the oil is ready.” Kagome nodded moving off to the side to watch him cook. A few minutes later she heard the popping sounds Sesshomaru had indicated and he added in the okra. This time she heard the sizzle.
“Most of the dishes are done this way in the south, with the occasional change in spices. Mustard and cumin seeds are compulsory but all other spices are your pick.” He stirred the okra one more time before taking out a pressure cooker.
She watched as he measured out a cup of some other lentil and added it into a steel dish. He poured a little water in before coating the bottom of the pressure cooker in water too. Placing the dish with lentils inside the pressure cooker, he snapped the top on and dug around a small drawer. He pulled out the weight- an object Kagome was quite used to having seem her mother use it numerous times in the kitchen. As he put the weight in place and started the gas fire underneath with a light Kagome looked on curiously.
When Kagome had been invited to spend time with him and Rin at the house, she had been pleasantly surprised by the invitation. Nonetheless, she liked this- especially the impromptu cooking lesson. She felt she’d learned about a new side of Sesshomaru that she had never seen before.
“Where did you learn so much about the south?” She asked leaning against a counter.
“When I first came to India they put me in Hyderabad for three months.” Sesshomaru stated. “It was to let me get a feel of India in a metro that apparently was laid back and had some North Indian influences. Still, the food wasn’t that influenced, it had its own unique southern flavor and my friend there- Anil- he taught me how to cook some. I found that the food there had its own unique appeal because it’s just flavored by itself.”
“That’s nice though, to have been somewhere where you could get adjusted.” Kagome wished she’d been given that chance. She’d been a city girl her entire life and while an Indian city might have still been a city, even a laid back one might have allowed her to adjust easier before coming to Okha.
“Honestly, I’m glad it was Hyderabad.” Sesshomaru announced. “The city was once ruled by a Muslim family- he was one of the richest men in the world in the 1930’s and Hyderabad was a name that was known by every wealthy man around the globe. Today, he’s gone of course but his Muslim cultural background still exists. They have their own unique version of Hindi, a special food called Hyderabadi Biryani, and just this charm that’s hard to capture in a place like Mumbai or Delhi.”
“You sound like you want to go back there.” He looked at Kagome and she saw how his face melted from the cold mask he usually wore to incorporate a hint of a smile.
“I do.” He mixed the okra for a moment and addressed her. “Have you eaten dal?”
“Oh yes! It’s actually quite good!”
“That’s what I’m making in the pressure cooker. Once it’s got about six to seven whistles, I can empty the cooker and make the same spice mixture. Once it’s ready I add the lentils to it and we’re done.”
“I’m starting to see a pattern here.” Kagome noted taking a look at the living room where Rin was still engrossed in her task. She washed her now empty glass of water in the sink and placed it in the nearby dish rack. “I think I’ll go see what Rin’s up to now. Thanks for the cooking lesson!”
* * * * *
A/N: So quick notes. The Hindi Kagome learns from Sunil is rudimentary stuff she would need to survive. When Kagome says “Badiya” (pronounced buddy-ah) it means great/amazing. I don’t know my Hindi numbers up to twenty since, being from South India, I never really had to learn. I know enough to navigate around North India but I don’t know any numbers after 16.
As for food. Yes, there is a BIG difference between N/S Indian cooking. What most of the world knows as Indian food is in fact North Indian food. In the South, people love their rice (you only eat rotis if you have health problems) and they tend to try to eat curries flavored with powders and spices. Sometimes they make gravy curries which usually have a heavy dose of grated coconut. That said, there are certain places in south India which, due to the large Islamic influence, have more of N. Indian food style (look up Hyderabad cuisine). The recipes I mentioned are ones my family uses. In fact, the dal recipe is probably known to 99.9% of people of Indian origin. As for the use of potatoes in North Indian cooking: I swear to a South Indian it was aggravating. I love potatoes but after eating curries that generally only consist of one vegetable, I had to adjust to potatoes mixed in with okra, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, and a bunch of other veggies. Kagome doesn’t know what okra is because as far as I know, they’re not used in Japanese cooking. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that. The manchuria and other food belongs to Indo-Chinese cuisine.
I also do not own anything affiliated with the Winnie the Pooh series. And if you have any questions, just message me.