A Kitchen Made of Beetroot

If helplessness had a colour, it was that exact shade of pink splattered all over the kitchen walls.

When the mixie jar’s cover flipped open and the blood red of the beetroot, diluted with orange carrots and brown ginger, coloured my kitchen a fuchsia pink, I immediately reconsidered my new year resolution of eating healthy.

I had the exasperated expression of that Pakistani cricket fan standing in the audience with his hands on the waist, who has now become a meme.

I took a long, deep breath. It was deep enough to reach my navel. I could smell what would have been a delicious detox drink. A perfect beginning to 2021.

If helplessness had a colour, it was that exact shade of pink splattered all over the kitchen walls. The oven, hand blender, cast iron pans, nothing was spared.

Memory is a funny thing. One second I am standing in my messy kitchen in Bangalore wondering how to approach the sudden bout of pink colour in my life, the next second I find myself in my two-bedroom barsati in Jangpura, Delhi. I am lying on the mattress that’s placed on the ground and am being rudely woken up by Abhi who’s emptying his gut on my left foot.

Abhi’s friend must have called to say that he was on his way back home with heroin.

“Dude! You do this every time he calls to say he’s coming with stuff. You have a bucket next to you dedicated to this. At least puke inside it,” I tell Abhi trying to muster as much anger as one could who has just smoked hash.

Sorry Tiwary, I can’t control my excitement of getting the next hit, he says.

I remember he had used the word “talab,” a term someone had used before slapping me for cutting the queue outside a cinema hall in Patna when I had gone to watch my first blue film in 70mm.

I get up on one leg and hop to the washroom. As I come out after having nicely washed my feet and toes, I see I have left a trail of semi liquid, semi solid, yellow gravy like things from the room to the washroom. I quickly turn around, go to the other room, pick up my shirt, and leave the house.

Cut to 2021, my first instinct was to run away from the mess. Instead, I stayed and cleaned the kitchen.

In fact, cleaning the house and washing dishes have become my go-to escapism tactics every time I face a wall I can’t move. I picked up this habit from Abhi, who would start cleaning the house when he didn’t get his fix of heroin for long. Once when he had ran out of things to clean, he opened the mixer grinder down to its smallest bits and cleaned it properly with a toothbrush.

It was perhaps the first time I had thought of Abhi in a long time. I wished he was there, so he could tell me how to open up the mixie and clean out what remained of my beetroot drink.