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​The audio recording of the cooking was made on 30th Dec, of the finale of my mother and I cooking a festive meal together. It was 'Thiruvatharai', a day sacred to Hindus as the God Shiva is said to be dancing his terrifyingly-beautiful cosmic dance of creation and destruction on this day. On this day, every year, we make a sweet dish called 'kali' in Tamil, which is eaten with 'kootu', a mixture of at least 7 seasonal vegetables (we had 11-13 in ours) cooked in a tamarind gravy spiced with sun-dried red chillies, coriander seeds, heeng/asafoetida and channa dhal that are first roasted in coconut oil and then ground with oil-roasted coconut. 'Kali' is made with native raw rice and two pulses (yellow moong dhal, channa dhal) that have been roasted and then ground roughly into a powder; this is then cooked in jaggery syrup with lots of ghee and flavoured finally with hand-pounded cardamom and cashew nuts. You can hear the sound of the gas lighter, me using an iron ladle to ghee-roast the spice and the cashew nuts, and conversations between me, my mother and Vijaya, our household help in Tamil
Gayathri R 2021

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  • about
    • the story so far
    • WHO?
    • Transactional (NOT)
  • Offerings
    • Fugitive Embodiments
    • TROLL TONGUE Stories >
      • LIVING STORIES | What's moving now?
    • Storyteller's Fire
    • WHAT ARE WE? GATHERINGS >
      • What are we?
  • Gathering dates
  • Keep me in the loop
  • ARTEFACTS
    • Synapse
    • THE CRACKS >
      • container
      • Love the Box
      • SOUNDS
    • Fire #6 >
      • Rhizomatic: Phase 2 : Fire #6
      • Experiment 1 : Bakhita Group #37
      • Words Fire#6 >
        • What If
        • For Bakhita by Robyn Fila
        • Rock & Tree by Tricky Singer
        • When I Dive by Christine Mulvey
        • The Ritual Never Ends
        • in visions by Tricky Singer
        • Antidote / The Slave Ship
        • The Sounds of Non-Violence by Doerte Weig
    • Diffraction