Malvika Singh brings Cooking for my Firefly and memories of Delhi to Chennai

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Book cover of Cooking for my Firefly | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Do you always cook the daal a certain way because your mother made it like that and it always reminds you of her, or does a certain dish transport you to summer holidays spent in your grandma’s kitchen?

For author, publisher, and columnist Malvika Singh, food is closely tied to memory — of family, friendship, travel, and Delhi at a time when the dining table was the heart of social life. On September 15, Prakriti Foundation presents ‘At the Table with Malvika Singh' an evening of readings and discussions about her memoir Cooking for my Firefly.

The second volume of the memoir trilogy, Cooking for my Firefly, is not quite a cookbook, though recipes are an intrinsic part of it. Instead, Malvika uses food as a metaphor to revisit the people and moments that shaped her life and to talk about a period in India that has become a story for much of the younger generation.

Written during the COVID pandemic, the book began as an attempt to record her experiences for her grandchildren, particularly a way of life she felt belonged to a different time. “It was a different time, a different age, and we all did things differently,” says Malvika.

Here, food is a means to connect those memories. “In our time, having a meal together was very important. It was sacrosanct,” she says. Family meals at the dining table were occasions to exchange stories, talk about the old times, and discuss the present. “There were designated days to meet the grandparents for lunch, and the whole family connected and exchanged stories. We talked about the legacy stories, spoke about what we are doing today, and our dreams for the future. There was a lot of engagement and embrace with people,” says Malvika.

The book also traces Malvika’s life with her husband, Tejbir Singh, affectionately known as Jugnu. She draws on photographs that he took over the years and dedicates the book to him. “Our house is an open house,” she says, describing a home where friends would drop in for meals, drinks, and conversations.

Among the memories she recounts is one of returning home close to midnight to find journalist Dilip Padgaonkar and filmmaker Mani Kaul sitting on the floor of her drawing room. They had eaten daal chawal, poured themselves a drink and begun singing while waiting for Malvika and her husband to return. “Dilip said to me, we were in the area, so we thought, let’s go to Mala’s (Malvika) house; I am sure if Mala and Jugnu are not there, the woman who looks after the house will give us daal chawal; we’ll have some rum and enjoy the evening ourselves till they come back,”she remembers, fondly.

“That is the kind of informality — the community coming together, friends coming together, family coming together.