A multilayered bildungsroman, a beautifully crafted book of grotesqueness and disquiet.
“DO YOU KNOW THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE IN THE HOUSE?                                              REMEMBER, KITCHEN IS THE NAME OF A DANGEROUS AND RISK-LADEN PLACE.”
Narrated by  Hafeezuddin Babar, fondly called Guddu Miyan, an orphan who grows up amidst a joint family, he is always drawn towards the kitchen and he keeps repeating that ”the kitchen is a dangerous place,” which juxtaposes the title. The kitchen in the house he grew up in is dark, dilapidated with black walls and broken tiles, with creepy crawlies, lizards, small snakes and rats.
The novel gives the feel of Marquez’s One hundred years of Solitude and Dostovesky’s Crime and Punishment.
In Urdu Anjum means star, the author has named all the prominent women in Hafeez’s life Anjum: Anjum baaji, Anjum baano, Anjum Apa, Anjum Jaan and his wife Anjum.
He kills two men who harm the ‘Anjums’ and carries its guilt throughout his life.
Korma, biryani, pulao, khichdi, the whole story revolves around the kitchen. He is often seen around the kitchen, enamoured by the sweet, sour, and spicy aromas of the delectable dishes. After an accident, Guddu Miyan starts getting premonitions. He associates the dishes cooked that day as an ill-omen and can foresee imminent danger, or death of someone.
“COOKING A DISH OF FISH IN SPICY PASTE ON THE WRONG DAY AND AT THE WRONG TIME WAS INEVITABLY GOING TO HAVE DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES. THIS WAS MY FIRM BELIEF AND FAITH “
As much as he loved the food dished out in the old kitchen, he hates whatever his wife Anjum makes.
The author brings out all the muck, filth, goo, and slime in and around us, which we often ignore or pretend not to see. The food we eat makes us and breaks us too, making it an elixir or venom.
“THE BODY HAS TO ENDURE THE PUNISHMENT FOR THE MADNESS OF THE SPIRIT.”
I’m sure the book would have read like poetry in Urdu, though I read the English version with the members of my bookclub