Light the Fire
Delhi, NCR
Riya was supposed to return to Delhi on an evening flight. Early in the morning, a pinging sound came from her phone with a message— ‘Dear Customer, your flight to Delhi has been cancelled. Sorry for the inconveniences…’
“Damn, the flight’s cancelled!” Riya shouted.
Arka, engrossed in reading the newspaper, looked up, removed the paper from his face, and said, “The paper says there’s a bomb threat at Delhi Airport. Many flights have been cancelled. The airline hasn't mentioned when services will resume. That means your studies are about to go down the drain. I told you repeatedly, stay, get admitted in Kolkata, focus on cooking... but no…”
“Why will my studies go down the drain? Has the flight been cancelled forever? If I got admitted in Kolkata, wouldn’t my parents have been left alone? Don’t I have responsibilities too?”
“Yes, you do! But somehow, ever since you passed class 12, you’ve started acting like a typical auntie. It’s fine though. But I know, the moment you get back to Delhi, you’ll forget all about cooking. You’ll either study, or just laze around and sleep.”
“Hang out or whatever they call it, that’ll happen too.” Arka’s dad said, laughing. He was also planning to go to some jungle to take pictures. He entered the drawing-room with the camera in his hand, made a comment, and then became serious again.
“No, no, Uncle, I don’t like hanging out. It’s just wasting time and my parents’ money for no reason.” Riya became serious.
Suddenly, Jyotsna rushed into the drawing-room, worried. “The gas is over, brother! Even if we inform them now, they won’t deliver before tomorrow or the day after. How will we cook?”
Arka turned to Jyotsna and said, “Tension equals heart attack. There are two cylinders at home!”
“Even those…”
“What’s this, are both of them empty? Has your sister-in-law gone to the hospital?” Arka’s dad asked Jyotsna, placing the camera on the table.
“She left before I came... Will we cook, or do you want to order online, brother?” Jyotsna replied.
To Jyotsna, both Arka and his dad were her brothers. Riya found it amusing in her mind. So, Uncle and Arka are supposed to be two brothers.
‘Light the fire, light the fire, burning the waste of failed lives, light the fire in the kitchen…’ Arka started singing in a tune.
Arka’s dad burst into loud laughter. “Bravo, my son! What a parody you’ve made, now Rabindranath Tagore, from heaven, might stretch out his hand and slap your ear. Anyway, now go ahead and order some hot kachoris and chickpea dal. Do we have to celebrate Riya’s flight being cancelled, or what?”
“No, no. I gave my mom an induction cooker for her birthday yesterday, so why don’t you put some khichuri in it, Jyotsna? Dad won’t eat outside food anymore. He’s going to the jungle for picture hunting. If he gets sick, who will take care of him? Come on, I’ll turn on the induction and show you. It’s really easy.”
Jyotsna confidently said, “I cook with the induction cooker, brother! You know, the professor who lives just three lanes away, he stays alone and sometimes asks me to cook for him. They don’t use gas there. Cooking with induction is so fast!”
“Wow, that’s great. Then start cooking. Dad’s face has dried up. Fry a few eggplants, and then his smile will return.” Arka said.
Thinking that she wouldn't be going to Delhi for now, Riya became a bit concerned and returned to the dining table. Arka had nothing to do either. He was supposed to drop Riya off at the airport in the afternoon. Catching the aroma of khichuri in the air, he sniffed and said to Riya, “Ah, what an amazing smell! I just asked Jyotsna to fry some eggs as well. Today, I’ll take a three-hour nap in the afternoon. Then, I’ll book your return ticket again.”
Not engaging with these topics, Riya asked, “Tell me, Arka da, when exactly did humans start cooking? Before that, they managed just fine chewing fruits from trees, didn’t they? Cooking is the root of all trouble.”
“Yes, you’re right. Truly, the time people spend cooking could be used for so many other things! But if humans hadn’t learned to use fire, by now, you’d have had big hair all over your body, and teeth like a wild animal. The smooth chin you have now would have been replaced by a sharp jawbone. You would have been sitting in fields or caves, picking lice from your head.”
Riya screamed at Arka’s words, “Ugh... just thinking about it makes me feel disgusting!”
Ignoring Riya’s scream, Arka continued, “Do you know what Mr. Darwin said? According to him, one of the key reasons for the rapid advancement of human civilization was the ability to control fire, something that other animals could never achieve. Although it took primitive humans millions of years to harness fire, the rate of evolution for other creatures during this time was much slower compared to humanity. So, the fact that you evolved from a chimpanzee into the modern human you are today, dreaming of becoming a scientist even before finishing your twelfth grade, wouldn’t have been possible without learning to control fire and cook.”
Riya shakes her head. “Right. Absolutely logical. I read somewhere that around ten lakh years ago, humans began cooking. Archaeological research has revealed this.”
“There are various opinions among archaeologists on this matter. Homo sapiens knew how to start a fire ten lakh years ago, but it's not certain whether they cooked or not. In search of evidence of cooking, archaeologists had to go to caves. Caves, being relatively less disturbed by nature, have yielded some evidence from tens of thousands of years ago. But humans didn’t live in caves from the beginning. After settling on the ground, they initially lit fires at night to protect themselves from wild animals in the jungle. If they roasted meat over the fire in the forest and ate it, the bones of the hunted animals would likely not be found millions of years later. Because, over such a vast period of time, many changes have occurred on Earth. However, in several places within caves, researchers have found charred wood and fossils of dead animals’ bones, leading them to draw some conclusions.
“In a cave on a mountain near the Red Sea in Egypt, a huge fire ritual fossil was found, estimated to be around a lakh years old. Charred elephant bones were also found. From cave paintings, it is further revealed that humans began cooking regularly about 40,000 years ago. Those who made cave paintings definitely had advanced brains. Without brain development, could they have been artists?”
Riya interrupts Arka. “So, you’re saying that cooking and brain development in humans happened together, right?”
Arka shakes his head. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m not saying this, scientists are. When humans began cooking, their brains started to grow, and their bodies started to shrink. Cooking made digestion easier, and essential vitamins, minerals, and other chemicals began to mix into the bloodstream quickly. As a result, there was a revolution in the brain's nervous system. Over time, humans began mastering arts and culture. But this revolution took place over many years, so it’s something we can’t observe in one human lifetime.”
“But some say cooking food destroys its nutritional value? Like, protein in meat becomes tough when cooked at high temperatures.”
“Now, let me say another thing. Our digestive system, from the mouth to the small intestine, works in a certain way, which we’ve heard about before. If we eat raw food and chew it, most of it cannot be easily broken down by our digestive system. Whether it’s protein or carbohydrates, undigested food is either excreted or used as food by the billions of bacteria in our body, not for our nutrition. Cooked food, however, is much easier to digest, providing the body with nutrition.”
“What about other animals that eat without cooking?”
“Because of evolution, human bodies have adapted to cooked food. Earlier, humans had large teeth, but now they are smaller. The stomach has shrunk over time. Imagine if you were told to survive by eating only raw rice, lentils, fish, and meat every day. You might survive out of hunger, but without nutrition, you’d become weak. Similarly, if a cow is fed cooked rice and lentils instead of grass, it would eat it but still lack proper nutrition. Nature has given cows the right to survive by eating grass. According to a famous evolutionary scientist, the way our bodies are formed depends not on what we eat but on how we digest food.”
“So it seems that humans started cooking out of necessity, and evolution was the real cause.”
“Exactly. According to scientists, cooking food allows energy to accumulate and enter the body. It makes digestion better and allows more energy to be gained from smaller amounts of food.”
“So, we’re basically eating an energy-rich diet, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct. However, eating such diets in excess can lead to health problems. For example, blood sugar levels may rise, and cholesterol can cause heart problems. Do you or I eat a balanced diet?”
“Balanced diet, meaning a well-balanced diet? Well, I don’t eat it, but eating with awareness could reduce the risk of problems.”
“Absolutely. To maintain a healthy brain, one must eat a balanced diet. That’s why the kitchen is an important place.”
“Many believe that cooking has changed society’s structure. What do you think about that?” Arka’s father enters the drawing room.
“What kind of change do you mean?” Riya asks with interest.
“Many social scientists agree that the division of labor between men and women dates back to ancient times. Earlier, humans went into the forest to gather fruits and hunt for raw meat. Gradually, women are believed to have played a role in discovering cooking. Men would hunt, and women would take care of the children at home. As they invented agriculture, perhaps they also discovered cooking by lighting fires at home. What happened was that men no longer spent time chewing raw food. With the extra time, men began spending more time on wars, hunting, etc. This created a division of labor between men and women, which we now call the ‘division of labor.’ Anyway, there’s no doubt in my mind that cooking played a key role in human evolution.”
“I agree with you, Dad. And today, without lighting a single flame in the kitchen, just using an induction cooker, we’ve created a history by making khichuri at home. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.”
Before Arka could finish, everyone burst into laughter. Meanwhile, Jyotsna arrived and placed the khichuri and fried eggs on the dining table.
