About the Podcast
Mumbai, like any other metropolitan city, has a large workforce of domestic workers who are often migrants from various parts of the country. A number of these domestic workers are employed as cooks in the kitchens of families, bachelors, and offices. Underneath the quotidian nature of their work, something magical keeps happening — unbeknown to them even…a subtle fusing together of their own food traditions and techniques with those of their employers!
Subsequently, this leads to a certain kind of cultural synthesis, wherein cuisines merge together at the hands of these domestic workers. The idea behind this podcast is to put together an audio cookbook of such recipes, which these domestic workers have devised while working in kitchens other than their own – recipes they’ve taken from across cultures and made their own, along with short interviews of them, telling us the stories of their lives.
Of late, popular culture has stereotyped the domestic worker-cook as being lazy (the typical ‘patli dal, namak kam’ trope), and not caring about the people she cooks for. However, anyone who has lived alone in a city like Bombay or has had their ‘Aunty’ cook for them while they were unwell will tell you how untrue both these notions are. The caste-class structures that are responsible for mainstream media’s portrayal of domestic workers are the same ones which have historically dictated who tells stories of whom, and who is reduced to being a mere character in someone else’s story. This podcast offers an alternative.
Didi ki Rasoi gives us a chance to hear these women in their own voices, telling their own stories, in their own languages. It gives us a glimpse into their lives, and allows us to look at food, labour, and the city through the perspective of these (frankly, really cool) women.
Team
Concept: Nikhita Singh
Direction: Nikhita Singh, Shruti Hande
Cast: Archana Vinod Vaghe, Jayshree Suryakant Mohite, Laxmi Shetty, Rashmi Mandal (Rekha), Ulhasabai Chindu Panmad (Leelabai), Tara Ramesh Salve
Sound Design & Editing: Vidhaat Raman
Sound Recording: Aditya Singh
Music: Achal Yadav
Lyrics: Madhumoy Satpathy
Vocals: Tanvi RP