Fly In Her Soup!

Fly in Her Soup!

My mother barely lived long enough to hold me and give me one long parting kiss - her first and only kiss to me. And I know of that only through hearsay...

Barely six months later, my father fetched another bride, because (as my stepmother was wont to say on many an occasion that she was exasperated with me,) he could not manage a baby daughter on his own. And till I was about three-four years old, I never knew the difference... Then she presented my father with a little son!

From that point onwards, he was the apple of the eye of them both! From the time he could point and smile, he was the darling of the family, to the exclusion of me. A couple of years later, he was combing his hair, shooting marbles and counting motor-cars on the road, better than any child of his age! Nay, he was better even than me! His brightness did not abate, even when barely an year later, a baby sister followed him into our small household.

Me and my sister were the mutts of the family, and since I was the elder (and also possibly because I was a ‘step’ to one of our parents), I was the bigger mutt, who was always leading the other one on. And so whenever we two got into a scrape – which was definitely not seldom – my sister got the lighter punishment, comprising of a light slap or ‘tokka’ on the head, while I got both the slap and the ‘tokka’ and told to go to bed without supper.

To make matters worse, I was dumb at school. I always got bad grades for arithmetic,
and indifferent ones for the rest – except for languages in which I excelled. My Malli on the other hand was a bit of what is called a nerd nowadays getting straight A-s for everything including handiwork, except that he shone equally well at sports - particularly cricket and football! Chuti Nangi was somewhere in between us, sort of zig-zagging among the subjects, getting here an A this time and there an A next time, but never actually managing to fail in any. Since my marks for ‘rithmetic were usually below 30, it was not long before I got labelled as the family donkey...

So, by the time I was sixteen nearing the time to sit for my O Levels, my Kudamma would sigh over me, and say that I would never make it anywhere except on a Home Science course, and that it was time I started practising cooking at home!

The problem was I hated to cook! Try as she could, she wasn’t able to inveigle me to come and join forces with her in the kitchen when Soma our Kussi Amma was on one of her long visits to her home village, or when Kudamma was concocting one of her ‘Specials’ for Sunday dinner.

Needless to say, this was all pretty galling for her as not only was she a trained graduate Science teacher, but a marvellous cook as well. Both fancy and plain. And as she liked to make out that she always tried her best to do the right thing by me, and never rubbed in the fact that I was only a ‘Step’ in front of strangers, it was trebly or more so hard for her... And so, she never gave up on trying to ‘make something of me’ by luring me into the kitchen...
So, that was probably how she got her bright idea that it was the first easy step that was really the hardest, and to make that easy step really eazy-weazy to me!

Well to explain things a bit, I adored things like sweets, cake, puddings and jelly! And I also loved hot-hot soup! So, Kudamma decided to get me at my Achilles’ Heel!

One fine Saturday morning, she went out on a ‘special marketing trip’, and brought home a large can of tinned tomato soup and a packet of red strawberry jelly powder.

“Now Sumithra,” she said, taking me by the hand and stroking my head, “You love soup and jelly, don’t you? So, I have brought you some very easy-to-make items of both of these! See how bright and pretty the pictures are on the jelly packet and the label upon the soup tin? All you need is boiling water, a couple of pans and following the instructions printed upon the labels!’

I wavered. I loved strawberry jelly and even more so (if possibly) tomato soup, and red was my favourite colour, AND it was a long time since she had actually ruffled my hair or stroked my head!

“Are they both for dinner?” I asked, playing for time.

“No, we’ll have the soup for elevenses, and the jelly for dinner. That way, we can make them both together in one fell swoop, and after drinking your share of the soup, you can go out and play again with Nangi and Malli till lunch time. We’ll make it a late lunch today – say at one-thirty, so that the soup will have time to go down, and everyone can enjoy it.” She paused a minute or two for her words to sink in, and then ruffled my hair again, “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll boil the necessary water for you. We need six cups for the soup, and two-and-a-half cups for the jelly. We’ll first make the soup, and then the jelly allowing the soup to cool down sufficiently to become drinkable...”

So, we made the soup and the jelly...

My stepmother had a large jug, which she said, held exactly six cups, and we filled the kettle first measuring with that, and set it to boil. Then my Kudamma got a large saucepan ready, and started cutting out the lid of the soup can. Halfway through, she suddenly paused, and asked whether I’d like to have a go at it? Thrilled, I readily assented. This was the sort of thing, my brother was particularly good at. But I managed! I managed to finish cutting out the lid, leaving in a little bit still linking it with the rest of the tin, just as my stepmother instructed! Then we emptied its contents into the pan, and added three-quarters of the water – now boiled – straight into it, using the rest to wash out the last bit of dripping from the can into the pan, and simmered the whole on the stove for half-an-hour, just as the instructions on the label said! It was so easy!

Then we kept the soup pan on the kitchen table to cool, and got out one of the best Pyrex dishes, carefully washed and dried it, measured out three cups of water not quite full to the brim, and set that to boil, while we read out the what-to-do upon the jelly crystals packet, then cut it open and tipped out the contents into the dish. Water boiled, we stirred it into the jelly crystals, carefully stirring the whole with a large spoon so as not to spill over. Finally it was all over, except for putting in the cooled jelly liquid into the ‘frig to set. That we could do after lunch, as she had said. All that remained was for us to do the washing up, since Soma had been banished from the kitchen for the moment.

“See, Sumithra, how easy it is? Next time we will have the almsgiving in memory of your real mother in our house, and invoke blessings on you too for your forthcoming O Level Exam, and you can help me and Soma to prepare it. Won’t you like it, Darlling?” my teacher and guide said.

I nodded happily. I was in Seventh Heaven!

Just then, who should walk in, but my pest of a younger brother! “M’mm, is it from here those delicious smells are coming from? Strawberry jelly and Soup! What an odd combination! But look! There’s a fly hovering over your soup. Oh! My God! It fell in!”

I started to cry. Loudly in large gulping sounds. So much so, that Thaththa and Nangi rushed in too, asking what was the matter?

For the first time, my Malli played Sir Galahad to me. “Don’t cry Akka, I will hop on a bus, go to Milgills, and buy you another can of soup. It will be with my own pocket-money! Shall I bring you onion soup this time, or better still, mushroom and cream?”

I settled for the mushroom and cream, though that was definitely not red or pink, because I knew that was his favourite kind of soup. After all, I still had my strawberry flavoured jelly! And I hastily put that under a wire mesh cover, before another stupid fly decided to fall into that...

So we had jelly for dinner, having enjoyed mushroom and cream soup for tea! And guess what? My dear stepmother let me make it all by myself, even to the boiling of the water – though of course under her careful supervision! And everybody said how marvellous it all was!

As I said, I was in Seventh Heaven! And I did a thing that I had never done before – not since my baby brother arrived on the scene – which hitherto I had found hard to forgive! I went upto my stepmother, threw my arms around her neck, and hugged and hugged and hugged her! And she in turn, stroked me, and kissed me back, and murmured softly, “Come Sumithra, we must be friends from now on. And you must call me Amma instead of Kudamma – which I don’t like. I am sure that your real Amma would heartily approve, from wherever she is – which I am sure is a good place. A very good one.”

From then on, my relations with my new Amma improved by leaps and bounds. She took a hand in my studies, helping out not only with cookery lessons, but in other areas too. And if I did not exactly pass my O Levels with flying colours, did it quite brilliantly in her opinion. I got credits for Buddhism, Arithmetic, Economics and Commerce, and Distinctions for English, English Literature and Sinhala AND Home Science! I went onto study languages in my A level class and then at the University, and then joined a Women’s weekly as a cub reporter. Though married with children now, I still write the cookery column for that paper, as well as indulging in bits of free-lance journalism, and also finds time to do a free English class for the poorer children in the neighbourhood on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

My ‘Amma’ is silvery-haired and a bit long in the tooth now, but still sprightly. Since My father had left us sometime back, she spends her time waiting in turns at the homes of the three of us. And she still never tires of turning out mouth-watering delicacies, as do her granddaughters – and one special grandson – my son! Indeed as she loves to say, she has found a worthy torch-bearer in him!

Priyanthi Wickramasuriya
(Written somewhere in 2005/06)