Ramadan Vignette II: Iftari
Short Story Archive #5
Issue #036
She is alone in the kitchen. A woman alone in the kitchen. Chopping, stirring, folding, frying. Hands deft, darting at the same speed and with the same efficiency as a line chef. But she is at all stations. A woman. Middle-aged. Pakistani. Chador draped over her head and shoulders. Cardigan and shalwar kameez. Alone in the kitchen. It shouldn’t signify.
She stands before a stove. Hot oil splatters on her hand, burning it. What registers in her mind—barely an ‘oh’—does not show on her face or in her body language. She doesn’t even flinch, merely continues. With that same hand, the skin burning, she lifts the samosas out of the wok and places them on the plate covered in a kitchen towel. There is already a tower of samosas on the plate, too much to feed one lone woman, enough for a party of ten, perhaps. She places a napkin over them and calls out a name. It’ll need to be taken to the dining table. No one comes.
She is stretched taut by the pile of tasks she still has to accomplish. Octopian, she navigates to the fruit salad, dicing and chopping straight into the bowl, without the need of a chopping board. Attending to everything. The chicken pilau, then the channa chaat, then the aloo tikki, then whisking the yoghurt, then back to the frying oil to do the spring rolls.
And, somehow, there remains an orderliness to her kitchen. Here, there is no batter smeared on the countertops, no piles of vegetable peels, no oil slicking the floor. It is the haunting-ground of women that shaped her by their unrelenting domesticity.
The front door slams impetuously. This time, she flinches. Her husband’s impatience has swooped into the house and spreads itself over every surface, every person. She glances at the time again, wipes her forehead with the corner of her chador and flicks another look at the clock. His firm footsteps down the corridor, towards her, then turning early: left into the dining room.
‘Where is everyone?’ his voice has the incredulity of the person who walks into a conversation mid-sentence, hearing something he does not like out of context. The question is followed by another and another. Names are called sharply, in quick succession. A response is only seconds in materialising; footsteps batter the stairs. Then the staccato as they make their way to him down the corridor.
‘Isn’t this a house of Muslims? Sit with me, this is the time for our Lord. Only ten minutes left, don’t you see? And where’s your brother. Where’s Amir? Call him!’
Chairs scraping back, whining against the laminate—a string orchestra warming up before a concert. Then throats clearing, muted voices. The family, settling in. And then a reverential silence.
In the kitchen, silence is a stranger. Sound flounces in water gushing from the tap, oil spattering and the low hiss of the flames on the stove. She pits the dates, surveys the trays and plates ready to be taken to the dining table. Exhales.
Lifting up plates and trays, both hands occupied, she enters the dining room. Barely a moment to absorb the familiar scene: table set, father at head of the table, children in their respective seats, heads bowed. One chair empty.
And now the clink and thud of placing the dinnerware down. Disturbance to the peace. Flitting a look at her husband’s face to gauge irritation but reading only serene devotion. Thankfully.
She makes three trips like this. Makes sure everything is switched off in the kitchen, surfaces are wiped down, dishes are washed. Looks regretfully at the last unwashed mixing bowl in the sink. Exhales. Turns away.
Now rushing, she slips into the empty chair. Inhales, exhales. Adjusts her chador and bows her head. Lifts her palms before her, cupping sacred words.
Just in time, as the adhan leaps from her husband’s phone, hands wipe over faces, dates are shared, lips part for the first bite and the fast is ended.
An ode in prose to the countless women working tirelessly in kitchens to prepare iftar for their families. Often unseen and too regularly unthanked and underappreciated. May Allah (swt) reward such women, and may the cycle of burden be broken so that it is shared in a just manner.