Brightening the Corners: Ambai's "A Kitchen in the Corner of the House"

Ambai | A Kitchen in the Corner of the House | Archipelago | 386 Pages

A Kitchen in the Corner of the House by Ambai is a journey into the world of Indian women told through twenty short stories. Ambai is the pseudonym used by the Indian writer Dr. C.S. Lakshmi, whose stories in Tamil are famous for their feminist themes. 

Reading A Kitchen in the Corner of the House is an extremely rich experience. Full of rich cultural references, each story has a different feel to it. Some are quick reads, others are drawn out. Some follow a linear storyline, while others feel fragmented with a stream-of-consciousness narrative form. But the one thing that all these stories have in common is a strong woman protagonist. They all introduce us to the harsh realities of what it is to be a woman in the modern world(s), torn between the stubborn traditional molds that society places them into and their will to strike out on their own. But this is easier said than done.

“I don’t know my goal. Is there a goal at all? I know how to overcome the obstacles that stand in my way. But I don’t understand the quest. What do I seek? And how? Do I even seek? How much further is it going to be?” 

 – Forest

 Sometimes these women are seeking their identity in the wilderness by themselves, sometimes they remain hidden under the veils covering their heads and faces and only have a kitchen in the entire house where they can rule as queens and make their decisions without the interference from the men. Some women must fight through the barriers of religion or caste in addition to rejecting the definition of what it means to be a woman often handed down to them by men and manpower. Then, there are women who stay entrenched in their designated roles and do the best they can from within those confines. In the end, these are women we have in every family across India - aspiring, ambitious, submissive, rebelling, bowing down to societal pressures, and every other shade in between. And each of these women wants to be more. 

“It occurred to her that the most difficult thing to accept about oneself was one’s own mediocrity. There was nothing more terrible than having to live with that for the rest of one’s life” – Trisanku

India is a land rich in history with traditions stretching back millennia. It is from this that its people create an identity for themselves. For women, this means having to reconcile themselves to the Idea (and idea(s)) that their families or society creates for them and passes them down through the generations on the one hand, and the Idea (and idea(s)) that women have of themselves on the other. Parents often decide the gender roles for their young children while the advertising efforts of brands further reinforce it it. The story “Once Again” is typical of the Indian parenting scene. Boys are told what shoes and shorts to wear for a girl to be attracted to them, and girls are advised to read ‘Femina,’ a woman’s magazine, for discovering recipes that they recreate in their homes. Putting it quite succinctly, here is it what means to be a man (and by extension, a woman). 

 “A man is one who earns. He who earns is a man.” 

 – Once Again

Ambai’s stories are ripe with this theme, where the modern must strike a balance with the traditional. One of the most moving depictions of this contradiction comes in the story, A Movement, A Folder, Some Tears

“If you look at many family photograph albums, there will be one photograph of a young woman in a graduation gown, clutching a rolled-up degree in her hand. Wearing an expression of fulfilment. Head held high. A keenness in the eyes. I too have such a photograph. But it was also customary, as soon as this photograph was taken, to remove the graduation gown and take another photo which would be sent to prospective bridegrooms.” 

This scene is only too real for young Indian girls in the present day. While women have continued to “break” the glass ceiling, it’s hard to not feel like they have not really broken it completely, just raised it a bit higher. In the Indian context, women continue to be understood and made to feel whole only in relation to someone else - as a wife, a mother, a daughter. But rarely does a woman stand out on her own, spectacular though her talents may be. At times, she herself may not be aware of her plight, and some times she may actively be a participant in perpetuating the patriarchy. But what is also true is that the role of women seems to now be shifting from one of subservience and acquiescence to discovery. So as much as these stories are about women, they are also a social commentary that analyzes and critically criticizes traditional social arrangements like marriage and familial structures. What Ambai seeks to do is take her readers on the journey of such women. Some of these journeys are metaphorical, some literal, and all are wholly Indian. No wonder three of her stories bear the names, respectively, Journey 4, Journey 3, Journey 1. 

I really don’t know, Dhanu, whether she has come here as a woman on her own, or whether she has rolled up the whole world and brought it with her in her bag.” 

 – Parasakti and Others in a Plastic Box

Ambai infuses a deep sense of reality in her stories by making the worlds of these women rich in sensory details - one can almost smell and taste and feel the environment of the characters. In one story, a kid urinating in a woman’s lap on a bus is considered no big deal, because children will do what they do and women just understand this about them and ignore it, since, they are mothers and that’s what mothers do. And woe-betide a woman who finds that shocking and complains because surely that means she doesn’t have children or isn’t married (even though the character was indeed married) for she doesn’t wear the traditional jewelry of a married woman and wouldn’t have been horrified if she had been a mother. Of course, this poor, single woman will understand it all when good fortune comes to her in the form of a husband and kids. In another story, a woman has every right to do as she will in the kitchen but if she dares to ask her father-in-law to shift the washing line where clothes hang to dry outside, obstructing the view of the mountains from the kitchen window, she will be laughed at, for what need is there for a woman to enjoy the nature’s vistas and dream of any adventures? Since Dr. C.S. Lakhsmi (Ambai) has been an independent researcher in Women’s Studies for over 35 years, she is in a unique position to analyze the challenges, constraints, and ambitions of Indian women. 

“It begins with someone else giving me an identity” 

 – A Movement, A Folder, Some Tears

Particularly poignant in Ambai’s stories are the descriptions of the woman’s body and pains that are unique to her. 

“Bapuji forgive me. You said: India would be truly independent when at last a woman, wearing all her ornaments, could go about freely in the middle of the night. You might have thought it important to mention ornaments specifically. We don’t need a single ornament, Bapuji. We would be content if there were enough toilets for us, should we need to answer calls of nature, even at midnight. We’d be happy if there were toilets accessible in all the highways and chief places of independent India, so that women don’t ever have to suffer, controlling themselves. Our bladders have grown weak from the strain of it. The urine, splashed freely by men, has made its mark on endless walls, starting from the temple wall; it’s become a metaphor for freedom, indeed. The kings of long ago planted trees. They dug wells. They built inns and resting places. We don’t know whether they established toilets. It seems to me this was our loss throughout the generations, Bapuji.” – Journey 1

Only a woman who has traveled through India, on long highways with few rest-stops in between will be able to relate to this. But this is exactly why Ambai’s stories are so interesting. They move beyond the realm of the familiar to the darkness unique to the plight of Indian women. Sometimes it may not be very easy to understand the significance of such situations. But this is exactly why Ambai had to tell them - to allow a broader audience to understand what it means to be a woman in India - being educated at the best universities, being talented in more ways than one and yet being betrayed by the societal norms and even, by their own bodies. In the first half of the book, we find stories revolving around the female body and expounding on domestic themes while in the latter half of the book, we encounter tales on politics, activism, and the role of Indian women in these areas. What is true of Amma in Parasakti and Others in a Plastic Box, is perhaps true of all women across these stories. 

Because Amma isn’t just an individual, she’s an institution” –( Parasakti and Others in a Plastic Box)