Reading & Writing Lounge

Monsoon Diary is one of my favorite books…sumptuous prose wrapped around lip-smacking recipes, that’s what this book is in a nutshell.

Flavours and family; simmering memories and sumptuous meals; quirky customs and solemn rituals; stories and spices, come together with aplomb to form a delectable book that you may want to read on a relaxed Sunday morning. Woven together with stories as varied as Indian spices and lip-smacking vegetarian recipes, Narayan offers insights into Hindu culture and custom, and contrasts her upbringing with life in her adopted America.

This heart-warming story, part personal memoir, part culinary celebration, takes readers on a journey which is as interesting as the contents of the book itself. Narayan’s association with flavours begins with a bite-sized helping of rice and ghee, the first solid food that the author tasted in a temple as an infant, moves on to the piquant memories of tangy rasam and the colorful traditions of making vatrals and vadams at her grandmother’s home. Lunchbox rituals at school; family tales over soft idlis and filter coffee; train travel and the flavorful memories stuffed in tiffin carriers; and, food like yogurt rice and olan that made Narayan think of home when she was studying at Mount Holyoke in America, fit in together like pieces of a jigsaw to form a sumptuous picture.

Peppered with delicious descriptions, interesting anecdotes and mouth-watering recipes, this book is about the author’s life, right from her infancy, through childhood and teenage years in south India, and ultimately ends with her married life in Connecticut.

Narayan’s fluid and unselfconscious writing sweeps the reader from the hot summer in Madras to the cool coconut groves in Kerala to the creative atmosphere in Mount Holyoke to sizzling summers in Florida. It is a story that is built carefully with cherished memories of her family, interesting people who add a dash of spice and meals that add flavour to this feast called life.