Tastes of home

The strength of this novel by the Michelin-starred chef lies in its central character.

Cover of Imaginary Rain. | Photo Credit: By special arrangement

In his new novel, Imaginary Rain, Michelin-starred chef Vikas Khanna dishes up the tale of Prerna Malhotra, an immigrant woman from Delhi who builds a life for herself in America through grit and hard work. Prerna is in her 50s when she is forced to shut down her beloved Lower Manhattan restaurant, The Curry Bowl, where she had cooked delectable Indian dishes for her customers. For 20 years, she kept The Curry Bowl going with the help of her dedicated staff. The eatery gave her room to showcase her culinary skills and satisfied her lifelong desire to feed the hungry. It also ensured her a steady income and reduced her dependence on her layabout husband, Manish.

Imaginary Rain

By Vikas Khanna

Penguin eBury Press

Pages: 256

Price: Rs.399

Prerna’s life is at the crossroads at the start of the novel. Loss haunts her. Memories of her son Karan—a victim of racism and bullying at school—loom large. And shuttering The Curry Bowl is as painful for her as losing a limb. Ever since she moved to America as a young bride, the eatery had let her do “what she did best—preparing delicious food to feed others, no matter what they did or where they came from”. She had taken pleasure in cooking for her customers and in building a small community around her restaurant.

Prerna struggles to find her footing after saying goodbye to The Curry Bowl and her friendly staff. Kris, her nephew, is a bright spot in her life. He shares Prerna’s deep-rooted love for Indian food—both cooking it and eating it. He is always eager to pick up cooking tips from his doting aunt. Prerna’s daughter, Sarah, who is away at college, also tries to cheer her up. She senses that Prerna blames herself for Karan’s death and for not having had enough time to spare for him as a working mother. The “hard edges of blame” wound Prerna as she struggles to cope with the pain. Sarah remains a supportive presence. She encourages her mother to start afresh after she loses The Curry Bowl and hopes Prerna is able to find some measure of closure about Karan’s death.

Credible strokes

Khanna’s sympathies are firmly in place for Prerna. He sketches the novel’s central character with credible strokes, making her a flesh-and-blood entity, while steering clear of stereotypes of the brown immigrant. Both her successes and mistakes find room in the story. Since Khanna is passionate about Indian food, he imbues Prerna with the same passion. Khanna is at his best in the scenes where Prerna goes shopping for fresh spices and herbs, describes her pursuit of perfection on behalf of her customers, and shares the sheer joy she feels when cooking for family and friends. Her travails as an overworked cook and an immigrant small-business owner are vividly sketched. The blood, sweat, and tears she shed on her workdays feel real.

Prerna’s bond with her adoptive father, Karanjit, also revolves around food to a large extent. Karanjit had adopted Prerna when she was a little girl hawking flowers to passers-by in Old Delhi streets. Karanjit’s kindness moulds Prerna’s character. His stories about the generosity of the Sikh community and the famous langar at Amritsar’s Golden Temple are etched on Prerna’s mind from a very early age. In their Delhi home, father and daughter bond over planting a garden, cooking, and feeding the needy. In America, flavours and scents bring back memories of the time she spent with her father. The sweet smell of mangoes and the acidity of lemons transport her “back to their home in Delhi, where Karanjit sat at the dining table, making her smell different vegetables and fruit so she would recognize their scents”. She finds solace in remembering how Karanjit would guide her in sowing seeds for herbs, spices, and vegetables in their garden. He had also passed on many a family recipe to her.

Karanjit’s stories about the generosity of the Sikh community and the langar at Amritsar’s Golden Temple are etched on Prerna’s mind from a very early age. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/ IStock

Despite Karanjit’s benevolence, Prerna’s childhood and youth were by no means idyllic. Karanjit’s mother, “bitter and wrinkly as a bitter gourd”, would refuse to eat the food Prerna cooked because the girl was not her flesh and blood. She taunted Prerna, calling her a dark-skinned orphan with “black hands”. Prerna’s adoptive sister Reema was in the habit of finding fault with everything she did, especially her attempts to drive their father’s car. Karanjit, however, reassured Prerna that things would work out. He is proud of his industrious daughter and keeps reminding her that “the seed that sprouts and grows against the odds is the one that never loses hope”. Karanjit’s love remains Prerna’s anchor all along.

Clichés abound

There is never a false note to be heard when the characters in Imaginary Rain talk about cooking and food. Plenty of earthy wisdom—such as how the simplest dishes are the hardest to get right—are scattered throughout the novel. Readers will cherish this. But when the characters spout platitudes about the meaning of life, clichés abound. Khanna could have weeded them out. Also, the writing is underwhelming in parts and the dialogue often sounds stilted. Reema addressing Prerna as “behen” in everyday conversations is one of the many cringeworthy instances.

Imaginary Rain shines the spotlight on several issues concerning South Asian immigrants in America: earning a decent living, building a life and a business, dealing with racism, visa and green card troubles, and so on. Nazim, “the only member of Prerna’s staff who called her by her first name”, has left his family behind in Allahabad “so he could give them a better life with the dollars he might earn in America”. He spends 20 long years slogging away in America, missing his daughter and homeland.

Prerna’s husband’s courier business flounders, and he resorts to filing frivolous law suits in the hope of claiming insurance payouts. Reema and her husband, David Mehra, try to fit into American society by erasing their desi identity as best as they can.

Reema pretends to be “Jennifer”, her husband’s American assistant, when he gets work calls. Though both Reema and David are annoying, upwardly-mobile social climbers, there is something desperate about their attempts to survive by talking, eating, and sounding American.

Happy arc

Prerna’s second innings after shutting down The Curry Bowl is predictably a success. The storyline, embellished with plenty of feel-good touches, traces a happy arc. Some of the coincidences that turn her life around seem forcibly engineered to move the story forward towards a happy end. In contrast, the changes Prerna brings about through her volition and perseverance, like learning to drive despite her poor track record on that front, organically blend into the plot.

Imaginary Rain‘s strength is its central character. She is drawn with emotional precision and empathy, and the twists and turns in her life make for compelling reading. Readers will find themselves invested in her journey, cheer her on as she puts in back-breaking work to turn her dream into reality in America. Despite its off-putting nuggets of pop wisdom and some mawkishly sentimental moments, Imaginary Rain draws you into its beating heart.

Vineetha Mokkil is the author of A Happy Place and Other Stories.

Highlights

• Vikas Khanna’s sympathies are firmly in place for the protagonist, Prerna, an immigrant woman from Delhi who builds a life for herself in America through grit and hard work.
• Shines the spotlight on several issues concerning South Asian immigrants in America.
• There is never a false note to be heard when the characters in Imaginary Rain talk about cooking and food.