When Rhea said she wanted to study Culinary Arts at the Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad, my first reaction was to ask her why a woman would study so much only to end up in the kitchen for the rest of her life.
But since both Rekha and I knew that parenting is often the art of standing aside while your children make decisions that scare you but excite them, we didn’t stop her.
In mid-2025, we dropped her off at IHM Aurangabad and came back home with one child less in the house and one large emotional hole at the dining table.
Now, she is back for a 2-month summer vacation…and we are wondering why.
She has completed only one year of a four-year course, but she already behaves as if she were a Michelin-starred chef.
The first sign came within ten minutes of her entering the house. She hugged Rekha. She hugged me. She said, “I missed you guys so much.”
But before we could say, “We missed you too, Rhea,” she walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, peeped inside, and asked, “Amma, why is there no cold water inside?”
We held back on the “we missed you too” for a bit. And we are glad we did.
Because immediately after that, she continued, “And how many days has this sambar been in the fridge?”
Whoever you may be – woke, liberal, conservative, religious, corporate, Trump-lover, Sadguru fan, software engineer, or one of those people who says “let’s touch base” even when nobody wants to be touched – you will not like your child questioning you.
That was one problem. The second issue was much bigger.
In our house, the kitchen is not a room. It is Rekha’s kingdom, temple, battlefield, laboratory, confession chamber, and occasionally, when I go in to look for desserts after dinner, a crime scene.
Rekha does not like anyone entering her kitchen and doing anything independently.
And when I say anyone, I mean me, the children, guests, relatives, delivery boys, electricians, plumbers, house helps, and in extreme cases, even the gas-cylinder guy, because according to Rekha, everybody enters the kitchen with the intention of shifting something from its original place, which in her language means “ruining the house.”
And now, after twenty-plus years of ruling this kingdom with an iron ladle, her daughter had returned from Aurangabad after just two semesters and was asking, “Who is in charge here?”
I looked at Rekha. Rekha looked at Rhea. Rhea looked into the fridge.
The fridge, poor fellow, looked back with the tiredness of a witness who had been dragged into a family dispute.
Deep down, I knew what the fridge was thinking: “Just close the door, I will switch off the light and go back to sleep.”
As Rhea got herself a glass of room-temperature water and opened the freezer, I became slightly worried, because in our house, if there is one kitchen-related work that has been assigned to me, it is the availability of ice cubes. I am guessing that in most houses, it is the men who handle this tough task.
Thankfully, there were some. She dropped two cubes into her glass, took a sip, and looked up.
Rekha and I tried to look away, but Rhea had other plans.
“Amma, you should think about labelling the food items you keep inside the fridge,” she said.
“Rhea, after you have gone, it is just the three of us. We definitely don’t need those fancy labels,” Rekha replied and started laughing.
I knew that laugh. It was not a happy laugh.
Early in my marriage, I had often misjudged that laughter and walked straight into danger with the confidence of a man who doesn’t know the bridge ahead has already collapsed, but not anymore.
It was the kind of laugh queens give when a young minister suggests administrative reform.
At this point, I quietly moved one step back, because one thing marriage has taught me is that when two women in the house are discussing “the problem,” the problem is never labels.
When Rhea had opened the freezer, she had also seen the old Amul ice cream box that Rekha used to store frozen peas.
If you are rich, you probably won’t know this.
But if you are from an average Indian family, you will know that the moment ice cream is over, the ice-cream box gets drafted into long-term family service,
“Why are you guys still using this? This was here when I left for college last year,” our daughter said, now getting slightly aggressive.
Even though I wanted to stay out of this discussion, I couldn’t, because we Rajans cannot miss an opportunity to crack a joke.
So I said, “Because life is full of disappointments, Rhea. You open the box expecting butterscotch, and life gives you frozen peas.”
Rhea stared at me and said, “Appa, please don’t joke. This is serious.”
That hurt, because in this house, my only department is joking, and even that had now come under audit.
Since Rhea’s hands had become wet while holding the cold ice-cream box and scolding us, she reached out for the kitchen cloth.
Rhea had picked it up with two fingers and asked, “Why is this still alive?”
I turned towards Rekha. She was silent.
People who know my wife know that her silence is not peace, her silence is not acceptance, her silence is just “preparation for the fight” but in mute. I knew yet another storm was loading in the background.
That cloth Rhea was holding had wiped the counter, the tawa, the handle of the pressure cooker, a few drops of rasam, my hand, maybe my son Ritwik’s school project, and, if I am being completely honest, at least one mobile screen.
It was not a cloth. It was a witness to my family’s history.
I couldn’t let my family’s history be dragged into the gutter, so I jumped in to save the family from splitting into two hostile camps, because we Rajans are brave that way, and when the need arises, we don’t mind becoming Mangal Pandey.
I took the cloth from my daughter’s hand, kept it on the kitchen counter, and said, “I agree, Rhea. This kitchen needs the touch of a seasoned pro like you. Why don’t you help us fix it?”
Rhea beamed with pride. She had won her first battle with her parents.
“Sure, Appa,” she said.
“Let’s start with labels for the food items in the fridge?” I suggested.
At this, Rekha almost jumped up to intervene, but I used my eyes to calm her down, because when couples have been together long enough, you can say full paragraphs with just one look, and what my look said was, “Please don’t start now, I am trying to prevent this kitchen from becoming Kurukshetra.”
“Sure, Appa. I will label them all this evening. I will also teach you guys how to do this in the long term,” Rhea replied excitedly.
It has been four days since that historic kitchen audit, and there are no labels in our fridge yet.
Our 19-year-old daughter has been busy on Instagram, WhatsApp calls with her friends, and asking, “Amma…what’s there to eat?”