Bong men can't cook (unless they get married)

Okay the title of this post is an invitation for trouble. But before any of you fly off your handle and start protesting violently do read through this post and give me a fair hearing.

I was talking to someone the other day who was trying to tell me about his culinary prowess. Now the fact that this person was male, unmarried and a bongoshontan* made it a little hard for me to believe that he could and would be able to rustle up a meal. The truth of the matter is almost every single unmarried Bong** guy I have come across seems unwilling to spend time in the kitchen unless there is a dire emergency. And by that I mean either severe gastric pangs. Or a girl-pataoing, impression creating, show-off involved. Outside of those circumstances I refuse to believe a Bong guy will toil for hours in the kitchen preparing ras malai and palak paneer.

I know you will toss statistics around about how most of the famous chefs are male and how men are passionate about their skill and do it out of the sheer love of cooking, unlike women who do it because historically speaking they have always been expected to prepare the food. And then we have people like Gordon Ramsay who go around spreading stories like this. And I am not denying any of that. It could very well be true. I am talking about a completely different genre here. And that is Bong men. And yes, I am stereotyping. And generalizing. Because every single Bong guy I have seen has never willingly tread the culinary path. And I think I even the know the reason for such apathy. It's the Bong women!

You see right from the beginning the little Bong guy is taught that cooking is a woman's forte and the kitchen is Mom's domain. A haven where men do not trespass. So the Bong Mom cooks and cleans and spends hours inside the kitchen while the menfolk get fed and coddled and protected from any sort of culinary exposure. Take for example my Dad. A typical Bong male who went from the pampered preserve of my Grandmother's sanctuary straight into the one prepared by my Mom. I have never seen my Dad fetch a glass of water for himself, let alone getting his own food. Yes, that is how mollycoddled he has been. And the strange thing is no one in my family finds it unusual. And we have a long line of culinary-dysfunctional males in the family. Every uncle, every cousin, every single male member has never had to cook or work in the kitchen. Ever.

So I know what you are saying at this point. That it is a problem in my family. A strange familial malfunction. But the fact is I have seen this same problem in almost all Bong male friends. Take P for example. All his life P has never had to fend for himself because Momma always took care of him. And then P decided to step out of his known territory. He came to the US for higher education. And P learnt that Momma wasn't around to prepare food anymore. So what would any normal person do in this case? They'd learn to cook and feed himself, right? But not P. He found a place where they sold Indian food and started having lunch and dinner over there. And P was quite proud of his ability to prepare the occasional Ramen noodles (if you can call that preparing). And it was exactly the same for A and S and D and AD. Eat out every day and have instant noodles when they were in a "cooking" sort of mood. That is until they got married. A-ha! You did notice that this entire generalization was against the unmarried kind (save the exceptions from another generation like my Dad).

Once these malfunctioning men get married things start changing. A little. They start learning new things. That the kitchen is not meant for the woman alone. And that a little help goes a long way (and I will refrain from elaborating here). And that cooking isn't all that difficult to begin with. And may be once in a while it can even be fun. So they start with cutting and slicing and doing the dishes to watching the milk so that it doesn't boil over and move on to more technically challenging things like following a recipe and preparing food. I have seen a newly wed Bong guy trying to impress the missus with an "apple" curry where he chopped up potatoes and apples (for the lack of any other available vegetable) and got dinner together before his wife came home from work. Needless to say the wife was very specific about the kind of help she desired the next time she asked him to cook anything. But Bong men learn fast. And one guy who tried to substitute cooking oil with cream cheese, cooked chicken in it and ended up with a charred, half-cooked mess that no one would eat, can now boast of making the best chinese food this side of the Atlantic.

So what is it about marriage that makes the guy want to wear the apron? Is it the desire to help the wife with household chores? Is it a new-found interest that they inherit along with the wedding band? Is it the fact that they have a person who will endure all culinary experiments and appreciate every effort? Or is the desire to survive the "unable to cook" reputation that is almost as unpalatable as the one with Bong nicknames.

So please bear with me while I wipe away tears of laughter when I hear an unmarried Bong guy say he makes the best Biriyani and Chicken chaap.

* bongoshontan son of Bengal
** Bong Bengali