Cooking heals, they say. For home cook Indu Bokaria, those are the truest two words. Almost four decades ago, after she came to the city from Kolkata as a 17-year-old new bride, little did she know that she would be called a Sandesh specialist one day, and all thanks to a small bout of fever that left her homesick for her favourite sweet.
“When I fell ill, my mother-in-law called a doctor who asked me to eat idlis till I recovered. However, when I was in Kolkata, the doctor used to ask us to eat Sandesh since it is healthy, light and contains just milk. I realised it was not available here. I remember telling my friend back then, ‘What kind of city is this, which doesn’t sell Sandesh?” recalls Indu, who was speaking on the sidelines of a Sandesh-making demo session, which coincided with the launch of her new book Recipes from a Diary at Artidinox in Nungambakkam, organised by the Dutchess Club, on Thursday.
The deep-seated urge to eat the sweet, had her take the onus and enter the kitchen to make it, fever or no fever. “That was the starting point. From then, I started experimenting and bringing out new varieties,” she says. Over the next few years, Indu jotted down her adventures with spice and sugar in a diary, in Hindi. The diaries piled up as did her interest. “And at one point, my brother-in-law’s wife suggested why not take a demo class? I remember hesitating then, saying that I was no professional to organise a demo, but I went ahead anyway. And people loved it. Since then, I have organised around 20 demo classes in the city, and even one in Dubai,” she tells us. “Slowly people started associating me with someone who makes the sweet, and I started getting offers amounting to Rs 10,000 a month or more. I felt so happy, and realised that every woman should take effort to nurture the smallest of skills she has,” she adds with a child-like enthusiasm.
Seeing Indu’s die-hard passion for cooking, her family decided to surprise her on her 60th birthday with a book containing the best of her works, last year. “We wanted it to be a mega surprise. We told mama that we were just setting up a blog for her, and needed inputs. She agreed to the idea, and gave us the best choices from her over 200-recipe collection, without knowing that it was going to be made into a full-fledged book. The translations of these recipes and photo sessions happened parallelly, and by August last year the book was ready,” says Vimki Giria, Indu’s daughter, and designer of the book. “We surprised her with a copy of the book on her birthday, when we had taken a trip to Yelagiri as a family,” she says.
Indu Bokaria’s book Recipes from a Diary, priced at Rs 500 was launched in the presence of popular culinary name Chitra Vishwanathan. It’s been compiled by Prathibha Jain.
History of the Sweet
Sandesh is a sweet made by grinding paneer and sugar, with other flavours added to suit one’s taste. The sweet, which traces its origins to Bengal, where it is called Shondesh, can be created from ice cream, petha or even rasagullas in a matter of minutes!
