Ammu

Ammu has always been known for her feasts. Family and guests would visit far and wide, in eager anticipation to devour her aromatic, colorful, and delicious cuisine. After sometimes days of preparation, the dining room table would be brimming with exquisite mutton Biriyani, spicy beef and chicken curries, fried Rui maach bhaja, and an assortment of bhortas and vegetable dishes for us to breathlessly consume. Our savory dinners would always be followed by syrupy sweet desserts consisting of Rasmalai, Gulab Jamon, flan and steaming hot milk tea. For Ammu and for many other mothers in our communities, food is used to exhibit various sentiments, including support, appreciation, security, love and warmth. Having warm, home-made food every night nurtured my soul so much so that I have aimed to recreate that very same ambience through food for my children and loved ones. However, while Ammu’s food may be at the forefront of my mind when I think of her, only after becoming a mother myself did I realize I need to and want to know Ammu more as a person. I want to know her story and hear her voice, understand her thoughts, and envision the world through her perspective. Although I have asked her to recount her past, her reluctance to express her narrative has forced me to attempt to understand her through my own vantage point growing up.

When I was a child, my family moved often. One of my earliest childhood memories is of Ammu adjusting her jewelry when I was 2 years old in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in my Nana and Nanu’s home at Shahid Bagh. At the age of 2 1/2, I along with my parents all moved to Iran when Abbu found a well-paying job there as a pediatrician. This was post-revolution Iran, in which by very popular sentiment, an Islamic Republic headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was born. While we only resided in Iran for a few years, I wonder how Ammu felt shifting from the familiarity of her parent’s home to an achingly beautiful but otherworldly country that required women to cover themselves from head to toe. Ammu must have felt relieved when, a few years later, her eldest brother, my Azeem Mama, sponsored our family to move to the United States. I was 4 years old when we arrived in Jamaica, New York, and Ammu was once again surrounded with the warmth and security of her many brothers and sisters who all had rambunctious children of their own. While Ammu may still not be fluent in English, and may still second-guess herself while attempting to converse in the language, she must find ineffable comfort in having not just our large family but our Bangladeshi community to perpetually communicate with. In fact, there isn’t a Bangladeshi-owned store on 169th street, Hillside Avenue who isn’t well acquainted with Ammu, her jovial conversations or her exuberant laughter.

When I entered Kindergarten, I adjusted to my new academic environment very poorly. Arriving from Iran and being separated from Ammu for the first time ever was so jarring that, looking back, I can only imagine how similarly traumatic the experience must have been for Ammu. I recall one incident in which I took everyone’s lunch boxes, all neatly lined up on the shelf, and began throwing them at all the students. I would pinch my Kindergarten teacher’s hands when she tried to stop me, drawing blood in the process. I would cry so loudly within my confined classroom, passersby could hear my rage from outside the school walls. These series of volatile events only ceased when Ammu arrived at school, where she was forced to embarrassingly sit directly next to the teacher’s seat, causing me to finally calm down. The humiliation, anxiety, confusion and concern for me she likely felt during those first few years must have been stifling, especially in what to her she likely still considered a foreign land. Fortunately, as I grew older, my initial inability to adjust was replaced with my eagerness to excel academically, which, I imagine must have made Ammu genuinely proud, but more so, infinitely relieved.

For years thereafter, I envisioned Ammu as just my mother, not realizing until I finally experienced children of my own, that Ammu is her own person, with ideas, values, depth, and desire — a person who has stories to tell, many of which that I, to this day, am still unaware of. With my first born, the pregnancy and birth of Arianna was smooth and uncomplicated, punctuated by an immediate, deeply-felt meaningful bond. In stark contrast, after I was born in Bangladesh, Ammu developed an infection that kept her in the hospital for two months, rendering it challenging for her to develop that same initial bond with me upon her return. I had a similarly manageable pregnancy and delivery of my second born, Ian. Ammu’s second born, on the other hand, passed away 10 days after birth, after Ammu’s uterus ruptured when she was 5 months pregnant. The magnitude of Ammu’s harrowing trauma from both life events must have been staggering. These events explain why Ammu overcompensates with almost every visit of the children, lavishing Arianna and Ian with their favorite Bangladeshi dishes of Chicken Biriyani and Pulao Korma, respectively. Again, for Ammu, cooking for others has always been her avenue to exhibit security, appreciation and devotion.

Seeking to mimic the same sentiments and ambience of love and comfort that Ammu had established, I have attempted to recreate her dishes for my children and loved ones for years. I have and still video-tape her cooking, after which I painstakingly record every ingredient, measurement, and instruction into my archaic binder of her laminated recipes. When one of my favorite aunts, Bou, recently had kidney surgery, I, with Ammu in mind, took an entire morning to concoct Ammu’s homemade Biriyani for a woman who was like a second mother to me growing up. Additionally, when some good friends aided us in scheduling me and my husband, Ivan, to receive a long-awaited doctor’s appointment, like Ammu, I expressed appreciation through another homemade batch of Biriyani for our benefactors.

Channeling Ammu when cooking and attempting to recreate her magic, however, fledgling I am, has been deeply healing, nourishing and cathartic. It connects me to her perpetually even if I am otherwise not always privy to all of her thoughts, desires and stories. There is something maternal, ethereal, and holy in providing sustenance to the ones we love. And that is a feeling I want to perpetuate so Ammu’s spirit, legacy and all the sentiments of love, appreciation, and security that she continuously fostered can live on through her recipes and cuisines at our dinner table not just for my family, but also for our progeny that will come thereafter.