Lahiri
describes the significance of rice in her personal life rather than universal
sense. In a subjective tone, she explains her father’s attachment with rice. He
cooks special rice dish, Pulao which is a symbol that binds the family
together.
She calls her father is a methodological man who follows the same routine. He has
worked in a university library for 39 years. He takes 2 glasses of water, walks
for an hour, and knows how to cook rice. He is popular for pulao and he knows the required quantity of rice for number of people these are the most important
trait of her father.
According
to Lahiri, the special meal her father prepares out of rice grain is pulao. It
is special because its not the white rice, boiled like pasta but its a baked,
buttery, and Persian in origin dish. It is a sophisticated indulgence served in
festive occasion. It involves sauteing grains of basmati in butter, along with
cinnamon sticks, cloves, bay leaves, halved cashews and raisins. It includes
ginger, salt, sugar, nutmeg, ground turmeric and saffron.
The
occasion for newborn children to be given a solid food is known as
annaprasans. The occasion is important because it is a rite of passage in which
Bengali children are given solid food for the first time, it is known
colloquially as a bhath.
Though
Lahiri knows how to cook and what it takes to cook pulao superficial but she
lacks a specific idea to make my father’s pulao. So she would never try to make
pulao.
Lahiri
thinks no one can cook pulao as good as his father does. The recipe is his own and has never been recorded. It is a dish that has become an extension of
himself which he has perfected over time. So she asserts that it has earned the
copyright.
Lahiri
assumes her readers don't know about Bengali culture since she has included Bengali
terms in her work. Words like; andaj, bhath, annaprasans and prabashi are used including their meaning in the text.
The
essay isn’t simply about rice or more specifically pulao but it is about the
relationship between her and her father.
The
essay has an implied thesis. I think Lahiri wants to express how deep her
father’s love for her is. She wants to show the attachment created by culture
and rice between her and her father.
She
begins her essay with the description of her father because she wants to tell
us about her father’s recipe. The beginning of her essay helps the reader to
understand both the major idea of the essay and her father.
Lahiri describes the
difference when her son and daughter celebrated their first annaprasan with the
same pulao her dad makes. Lahiri has such an admiration for her dad’s way of
always keeping a positive attitude. She learned how to respect and admire her
dad’s decisions and the passion he had towards making his favorite dish.
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