You Teach Best What You Need To Learn The Most

There really is one simple reason why I delayed this post. I had no headline and I kept figuring new things out everyday about the experience I went through. But I finally have a headline. This will be a long post. Speed read if you wish to or skip it entirely but I am not going to make efforts to cut this one down. Mostly because this has been one of the hugest culinary lessons of my life.

On May 29, 2013, I conducted a cooking workshop for six visually impaired participants. The workshop was held at APB Cook Studio (Saki Naka, Mumbai) and I was guided, assisted and helped along the way by the studio's Chief Foodie, as she likes to call herself, Rushina, and her team of superstars at the studio.

The idea of the workshop came from an old friend and classmate from my alma mater, St.Xavier's College in Mumbai: Melinda. Melinda has been working with the Xavier's Resource Centre For The Visually Challenged (XRCVC) for a while now and felt that cooking is a very important life skill that everybody should be familiar with, if not comfortable. What started out at a casual conversation about doing a workshop that would help the visually challenged work in the kitchen with a certain amount of confidence, gradually grew into a discussion on the where, how, why and when of actually putting together a course.

Rushina, Mel, Prof. Sam and I @ APB Cook Studio

MasterChef Australia had taught me that coming up with a pop up restaurant and building a kitchen from scratch are incredibly challenging. Which is why the idea of conducting a workshop in the foyer of Xavier's, where I have spent several hours of my college life, did not seem appealing, even though it was a comforting space. Melinda and Professor Sam Taraporevala, who is Associate Professor & Head of Sociology & Anthropology at St. Xavier's College, and is the Director of XRCVC, being visually challenged himself, seemed to agree after I insisted that we should be focusing on the biggest challenge of structuring this workshop, not setting up a kitchen from scratch. That's how I thought of looping in Rushina and organising the workshop at her studio.

Cooking Survival 101

With a month and a half to prepare, I decided there was no point getting frenzied about the whole thing. The man and I drove down to the studio one day and spent a day studying Rushina's beautiful kitchen. We learnt it's advantages and tried to identify a few disadvantages that the students would face, given how they'd be working completely with their sense of touch and smell. Rushina's husband, Shekhar, who is also very involved with the studio, gave me the best advice I have received about conducting this workshop. "Don't try to predict what's ahead of you, leap in and learn as you go."

That is just what I did. Incredibly, it brought a sense of effortlessness, calm, humility and a total feeling of openness to feedback. What a lovely space to be in! Things got exponentially simpler after that. I consulted with Rushina and we put together simple recipes that our participants would need to be hands on with. Given how none of them came with experience in the kitchen, we stuck to Dal, Rice, one Paneer Subzi and some boondi raita.

Figuring Out Spices

Then started the structuring - how to instruct, how to explain, how to give aroma and touch cues and most importantly, how to work with risks like splattering, flames, knives and more.

Rushina on her end kept formulating ideas that would make the cooking process easier. On my end, I conducted some blindfolded cooking sessions alone at home, trying to understand my cooking in a whole new way. We don't quite realise, as people who take sight for granted, what a visual medium cooking is. Without my eyes, I started noticing little things: I would lean towards the pan, I would not know if I am putting the ingredients into the pan or outside it, I noticed how turmeric smelled when close to burnt, how the raw stinging smell of onions matured into a softer, sweeter aroma when cooked. But remembering what Shekhar said, I decided that the little I had learnt was enough for now. I would figure the rest out on the day of the workshop.

However, help came in a HUGE way in the form of Vishakha More. Vishakha has been blind for life too and has been cooking for 15 years for her family. She kindly allowed us to visit her home and observe her cook Poha for us. She did little things that helped us understand her world better: grid system arrangement of spice boxes, set measuring spoons for rationing spices, trays to be used while pouring to limit the area of spillage if any - she is a Goddess. She told us everything that she could but I feel the best part of this process was her asking us to share our learnings with her. Incredibly humbling coming from a lady who knows what life is like for the visually challenged, her desire to learn more told us that we had to keep our cups empty if we hoped to fill it.

Understanding how microwaves work

Melinda was with me throughout this research, Rushina kept calling to share notes, tips, giving direction in her own kind, non-intrusive yet elder sisterly way. What amazing people to work with for a process so important to each of us not just as cooks but also as human beings.

Throughout this process, the man kept acting as my sounding board, drove me around, helped me carry things on the day of the workshop and took leave to attend it too. I am admitting this here, I would never do 1% of what I do without him.

Neha finds it very difficult to get Prof.Sam to be natural for the camera

Finally, on the day of the workshop, we started prep by 10am, started the workshop by 11am, and a workshop that we were to conclude by 2.30pm, spilled over to 4.30pm. Cookies were passed around for the starving participants and yours truly, spices flew, experiments worked, some recipes delivered, some had to be tweaked, feedback was shared, hands were clapped.

Each participant had an assigned volunteer throughout the workshop. Our volunteers were from St. Xavier's College. They guided, acted as eyes and aides to our participants and even shared the food they has helped the participants cook. At the end of the day, we all sat down to a meal, all participants eating what they cooked, sharing with their volunteers who had by then, turned into friends. Realisations were tucked away in the memory to do better during the next workshop.

Yes, there will be more workshops. Because gastronomy, my friends, is one of the most effective forms of therapy there is. Rushina also shared this entire experience with the brands that have helped make her kitchen so well equipped for any kind of cooking process. This means that names like Kenwood and Siemens are now going to be updated with information they need to make appliances more accessible to the blind. Huge step for us all, I feel.

I am not going to spill the details of exactly how the workshop itself was but I will leave you with some quotes we collected while we taught. And learnt. And had our lives turned around:

A rare non-awkward camera moment by Prof.Sam

Rahul: I can't believe I asked my mom to give me my dinner in ten minutes. We have been at this for hours!

Rahul: The masala is jumping and stinging my hands! This must have happened to my mother too, it happens everyday!
Neha: I really want to learn to cook well, with precision, not just for the heck of it. And so I think I will take my time.
Murtuza: Pakode banana seekhna chahta hoon, kar sakte hain kya? Deep frying me tel udega na?
Tilak: Yeh knife ko aur sharp karo, fir jaldi katega.
Tilak: Mujhe mere raite me jeera chahiye. Fir mast flavour aayega.
Tejas: Maine taste karke dekha, aur zyada haldi nahi chahiye.
Tejas: I had a great volunteer - he really helped me out, may be because he is a foodie, so he really knew how to help me!
Prof Sam: You know what I would do? Marinate the paneer. In curd, mint, lemon, with salt, green chillies. Yummy!

(PS: Huge huge thanks to Neha for being so motivating and helpful through the process, to Mel for conceptualising this, following up, being there all the time, to Rushina and her team for making this such a memorable experience & giving us access to the heaven that is APB Cook Studio, to Shekhar for incredibly sensible advice that drove the way for how this workshop fell in place, to Prof. Sam for giving us incredibly valuable feedback, to the participants for agreeing to be part of something which was a first for all of us, to our volunteers for being such champions, to XRCVC and St. Xavier's College for encouraging this entire process, to Tree (Fr. Terrance Quadros) for telling me "you will do this!" all the time, to mom because she is my favourite cook, to my friends who called to wish us godspee, and last but definitely not the least, to the man for all that he is and the sense of peace he brings into my life.)