'Insatiable' book review: Sugar and Spice, Shobhaa De’s encounters through a year with food
It is raining memoirs in the literary world, and an eclectic addition to the list is Shobhaa De’s Insatiable. Unlike most of her previous books, however, the matter here is more picquant than salacious. It’s food.
De lays it down herself when she begins the book with: “I promise not to be three things––profound, pedantic and pretentious.” Here, she looks back at the year leading up to her 75th birthday through
a gastronomical lens––the steam coming out of puffy luchis, the zing of kasundi, the sweetness of her favourite Jaipur lassi and more. Each chapter is a month that tells the readers the highlights, not necessarily all happy, of her life at that time of the year.
De is known for her irreverent remarks, her raunchy novels. Being quippy, conversational and gossipy comes naturally to her. So even though the memoir is written in a slightly different taste, she never quite lets go of the quintessential Shobhaa De- touch. For, she is someone who knows how to sell her books; any ardent reader will agree. Ardent, mind you, not intellectual.
In fact, it is hard to imagine a somber De at all. When writing about life and food, she is frank, poignant and even funny. “The perfect luchi can be no bigger than the size of a well-endowed woman’s breast. It has to be light as air, spherical and golden (luchis have complexions too),” she writes.
Food really predominates in the book, but how she intertwines it with memory is what one should read it for. In her own words: “Even though food is at the centre of the narrative, I use food as a metaphor as well. Food is an emotional experience. The same food eaten with strangers acquires a different taste... that is
the nature of food.” And the accessible, spontaneous and intensely personal writing works wonders to make her more real.
The author uses the culinary strand to talk about how she strikes a balance between her private and public life. She writes about her relationship with her children, keeping up with the social scenes, and most importantly, her writing. Aware that she is often dismissed as an author of all things frivolous, De, in this memoir, puts her foot down and finally finds her genuine voice. “How do I tell these people what writing means to me? It is my breath! There isn’t a moment when I am not thinking about writing.”
Scratching beneath the layers of all the pomp and show, the book indicates that the author might be earnest in her proclamation after all. There are snippets about her behind-the-scenes interactions at the Jaipur Literature Festival, which reveal her as someone who feels at home amid the literary buzz. Her joy is palpable. The way she writes about the Pink City recreating its vivid imagery evocatively on the pages of this book, does speak volumes about her skills as a writer. As does the creative liberties she takes by mingling the Queen’s English with its desi version, giving her prose an inimitable originality.
Her prowess as a writer, though, lies in her ability to give her readers a sneak- peek into the lives of greats such as M F Husain and Aamir Khan in her own memoir. That is Shobhaa De. She promises you the ‘deets’ and she delivers.
The title in a way aptly sums up all the different threads that are skillfully entwined, entangled, knotted and embellished by the novelist, who is also known as India’s Jackie Collins. But with Insatiable, she might have just done the American writer one better.