Secret Diary of the World's Worst Cook , livre ebook

Penguin Books Ltd - Sen Gupta Subhadra

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56 pages

English

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Rohin is fifteen and; despite his father s wishes; wants nothing to do with science in school. But what does he want to do instead? On vacation at his grandparents rambling haveli in Lucknow; he stumbles upon the secret diary of fifteen-year-old Hassan Ali; or Hasnu; reluctant cook s apprentice; the despair of his father and black sheep in a long line of illustrious chefs to the nawabs of Lucknow. As Rohin reads the story of Hasnu s doomed culinary career; he decides he has to track down Hasnu and find out what happened to the Bekaar Bawarchi. Did he escape the kitchen? What did he do instead? And how did he tell his father he didn t want to be a cook? Rohin s search unearths some hilarious stories of spotted eggs; how a famous actress demanded a hot meal; the disappearance of a khandani khazana; of friends and kitchens And one day Rohin realizes what it is he wants to do with his own life.

Sujets

Children's

Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	01 janvier 2011
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9788184755749
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SUBHADRA SEN GUPTA
The Secret Diary of the World s Worst Cook
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
1. I m Not That Stupid You Know
2. Playing with Junk
3. What is Coriander?
4. Old City Blues
5. Rajjo Mia Salaam!
6. A Bawarchi s World
7. Meet My Friend Hasnu!
8. The Khandani Khazana
9. A Call at Night
10. Chef Mirza Presents
Copyright Page
PUFFIN BOOKS
THE SECRET DIARY OF THE WORLD S WORST COOK
Subhadra Sen Gupta has written over twenty-five books for children including mysteries, historical adventures, ghost stories and comic books. She and illustrator Tapas Guha do the Feluda Mysteries comics series for Puffin.
Right now she is waiting for someone to build a time machine so that she can travel to the past and join Emperor Akbar for lunch. She loves to travel, chat with auto-rickshaw drivers, and sit and watch people. To start a conversation with her on any topic under the sun, email her at: subhadrasg@gmail.com .
This book is for my nephew & friend DHRUV SENGUPTA The best cook of scrambled eggs in the world! With love.
I m Not That Stupid You Know
It s an old problem with me-feeling hungry again a few hours after dinner. It happens to me at least twice a week. I checked the clock by my bed: 12.24 a.m. Good. Hopefully everyone in the house would be asleep. I clicked off from Facebook where I had been doodling around, sending silly messages to my friends, and silently crept out of my room, barefoot, making very, very sure no one heard me.
I was being a greedy slob, again , and if Dad caught me, you can be sure there would be hell to pay.
My older sister Isha says I move like a ghost because I often sneak up behind her when she is concentrating on something really serious, like putting on make up, and say in this scary whisper, Whatchya doin babe? and then move back fast as she jumps and starts to yell and throw things.
I floated down from my room, past my parents bedroom, through the living room to the dining room and opened the fridge and surveyed the contents. Ummm ah let s see potato sabzi nah! Yellow-green dal, whoever invented this dish? Our cook s masterpiece, soggy bhindi nooo! One and a half shami kababs, yesss that ll do with two slices of bread and some chilly sauce also where s the mustard? And yes that can of Diet Coke that Isha bought but never drank perrrfect!
Carrying my snack I was ghosting past my parents bedroom when I heard voices. They were arguing about something. Then I heard my name and knew it had to be about me. So what was my dear Dad furious about now ? Carefully putting my loaded plate on a table, I slid closer to the door. Was it my flunking physics, or the letter from Mrs Prasad about my not submitting the maths homework?
Ma said, Isha will be at the science camp but
And Dad snapped, There s Rohin.
Yeah riiiight, there s Rohin, me. Dad always sounds like I m a major headache and whenever he says my name his voice goes all irritated and really impatient.
Ma was still talking, Rohin can go either to Panaji or Lucknow.
Quite! It s only for a month after all. Dad sounded really relieved, as if a big problem had been solved.
Later, sitting by the window chewing the cold kababs, I wondered what they were up to. My summer vacs had started and clearly they wanted me out of the house for a whole month. Not a surprise really, Dad never likes to have me around; I get on his nerves just by being in the same room and breathing . Once while watching a T20 match on TV, I coughed and he whipped around and snapped, What? as if I had thrown a bomb or something.
Dad and me, we re like a team made in hell.
My revered parents, Dr Vikram Shekhar and Dr Reba Shekhar are both physicists who work at the National Physical Laboratory in Delhi and have about half the alphabet after their names-MSc, PhD, DSc. As Isha says, only the Bharat Ratna and the Nobel Prize are missing. Isha is studying bio-chemistry in college and will get her own alphabets soon. The problem is me-Rohin Shekhar, flunker in physics, a duffer in chemistry and a disaster in biology. And things are getting serious now because I m in the 10th standard. Next year they expect me to choose the science stream for my plus two. Correction! They take it for granted and no discussion allowed.
I tried a few times to bring up the subject at dinner and they stared at me with the same puzzled look and asked, Not take science? Then what do you want to do? The problem is I don t know. So then I start to mumble about commerce or political science and Dad gets his here-comes-stupid-Rohin look and snaps, Rubbish! You just have to study harder instead of wasting your time at the computer playing asinine games.
He loves that word, asinine and always uses it for me. The first time he said it, I looked it up in the dictionary. It said: extremely stupid or foolish, derived from ass . Trust Dad to use the bigger word. Ma at least does not try to bully me but I ve given up trying to make Dad understand. So I ll just take commerce next year and he can shove it. He seriously believes that anyone who doesn t study science is a shame to the family. He once yelled at me, What will my friends say when I tell them that my son is studying political science?
Well, it would be better than saying my son got 35 per cent in physics and got kicked out of school. But that never occurs to the family genius, does it?
Next morning I was concentrating on the toast and omelette when Ma spoke to me, Rohin! We have to discuss something.
Mmmmfffmm umm yeah?
Your father and I are going to a conference in Vienna next week and then we plan to travel in Europe for a fortnight.
Cool!
I know it s cool, Rohin, but we can t leave you here alone.
I stopped chewing. Why not?
Isha is only back in July and the cook s going on leave.
No problem Ma, I can cook, you know.
I know that you can cook but we can t leave you alone here.
I was already planning a party the moment their plane took off. Could even try the new pasta recipe I found on the Net.
Why not? I was beginning to sound like a recording.
Dad added milk to his cornflakes. Because we know you. You ll call all your friends and spend all day messing in the kitchen, play loud music, order junk food and we ll come back to a house that looks like a disaster zone.
I chewed my third piece of toast and did not say anything. He wasn t expecting me to reply anyway.
So, Ma continued, acting as if Dad hadn t spoken at all, You have a choice. You can go to Nani in Panaji or Dadaji and Bari Ammi in Lucknow.
That was a no-brainer. Lucknow.
Ma laughed. I knew it! I was sure you d say Lucknow.
Dad turned to stare at her. Why were you sure?
I got up to go. Because Bajju Bhai is there.
What s so special about Bajju? He s only the cook.
Exactly.
Is that all you think about? Food?
Yup! Food is my scene.
This conversation had gone on long enough and I had to get out before it got into the father-having-serious-talk-with-idiot-son mode. So I scooted.
I don t expect Dad to understand about Bajju Bhai because he never talks to him. For him Bajju is just a servant, his parents cook and khansama. Bajju s full name is Bajrang Singh Bisht and he has been with my grandparents for yonks. He runs the house and the kitchen, fights with the maid and gardener and drives Dadaji s car. I spend a lot of time with him; he taught me to cook after I told him that our cook in Delhi sucked.
My grandfather, the one-and-only Dadaji, is Shashank Shekhar, retired professor of history and my grandma is Shireen Shekhar. She is what Dadaji calls the interfering sort . He says he doesn t know what he had done to get two dictators in his life-a wife and a khansama always telling him what to do. Isha and I call Grandma Bari Ammi and not Dadiji because she said that she is not bald and toothless yet. She is a social activist and runs an NGO that helps poor women and is always madly busy. She s not the grandmotherly type anyway. For example grandmas are supposed to cook and knit sweaters for you but she usually just hands me some cash and says, Go buy two . And when it comes to cooking, oh, let s not even go there. I like her, she s honest.
So one month in Lucknow with Dadaji, Bari Ammi and Bajju Bhai and no Ma, Dad or Isha. Now that totally rocks.

I got off the train at Lucknow station and there was Dadaji, with Bajju lurking behind him. They look like a comedy team. Bajju is tall and thin, Dadaji is short and sort of plump. Dadaji has a smiling face because he finds most things in life amusing while Bajju always looks gloomy as if he s just burnt the masala. He smiles so rarely that if he ever laughs at a joke, and that happens about once a year, Dadaji and I do a high five and yell, Bajrang Bali Bisht ki jai! Bajju absolutely hates that.
We got to the car park. Oye! New car! What happened to the old one?
Your Bari Ammi is driving it.
She s still driving without her glasses?
Not after she got challaned three times!
Thank god!
Bajju started the car. But she still drives with one hand and talks on her mobile.
Bari Ammi likes to do at least three things at one time. Dadaji says she invented multi-tasking forty years ago. So while talking to you she ll be answering her email or sms-ing someone and instructing Bajju on the menu or arguing with Dadaji. The house becomes very peaceful when she goes off to her NGO office.
The moment the car turned into our lane I felt great. This was absolutely and totally my most favourite place on the whole planet. Dadaji loves gardening and when he retired from the university he went looking for a house with a large garden. He couldn t believe his luck when he found one with a small mango orchard at the back! So according to Dad he wiped out his life s savings to buy it . The Great Scientist does not approve of course, but I do. It made Dadaji happy, didn t it?
The house is what they call a haveli-a whitewashed single-storey bungalow with a garden