Book Review: Spirits in a Jar by Sarina Kamini

Food is an integral part of any culture. From birth till death, milestones in life are often marked with celebrations – and food forms an important part of these events. Relationships are built on food. It is also an inseparable string that binds one to their roots. Food can also be cathartic, and also a great anti-depressant.

A recently-released Bengali fantasy film is also based on the concept of food driving the basic emotions of a person. So, seven spices – after the colours of the rainbow – depicted the seven basic emotions in the film. ‘Spirits in a Jar’ by Sarina Kamini takes the thought to a much bigger scale.

As the blurb of the book says, “food is love, love is faith, and faith is family.” The book recounts the tale of an Indian-Australian woman coming to terms with her mother being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She finds solace in food.

Her mother’s old cooking recipes help her heal her wounds and rediscover her Kashmiri roots. She wins over her grief and loneliness by seeking solace in spiritualism. The spices are her medium – she revisits the core beliefs of Hinduism and personalises God in her own way. In the process, she learns the value of acceptance and love.

While the book is predominantly about food, it also touches upon socio-political issues – like the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. The author explores how this flight from one’s homeland bore an impact on several generations thereafter, and changed lives.

To her credit, the author has beautifully crafted the characters. Each of them are enamoured with layers and complexities of emotions – which makes it very easy for a reader to connect to them. The author has also established a complex web of emotions centred around the mother-daughter relationship. The juxtaposition of the protagonist’s relationship with her mother with that of her children gives us a glimpse into the generational shift in parenting as well.

Kashmiri food is delectable and the lovely recipes that this book has make one immensely crave for food. However, like the absence of a key spice makes a food bland, ‘Spirits in a Jar’ fails to connect with the reader beyond the food. At times it is tiring. Overall, the book serves a staple diet of rice-daal when you were expecting pulao.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

P.S. The review copy of the book was provided by Westland Books

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30 Days Blogging Challenge: Day 20 – Whats makes me happy

Making me happy is no tough feat. Anybody who knows me will be able to make me happy in few easy steps. Happiness for me is more like a curry with all the spices in the right mix. Deficit of one ingredient will not give the perfect flavor and the excess of any will result in a distasteful mix.

Are you ready with your pen and paper to note down the ingredients to make me the happiness potion?

1. Take a large cauldron and throw in some friends into it.

2. Add a few hundred books (mostly history/biography/fiction/politics/rom coms).

3. Now add a pinch of flattery.

4. Do not forget to add some good music (AR Rahman, Tagore… you know the routine by now, don’t you)

5. The main ingredient – food. Tasty, Variety, Large Quantities of it.

Tada!

Your potion is ready!