The Long View Letters
Issue 03 (May 17, 2026)
On Making a Khichdi:
(And the Absence of Certainties)
The truth is I love straight lines. I admire mathematical precision. If life were Euclidean geometry, I'd think it a delight (even though I hated the subject in school).
For all these reasons, I admire bakers and baking. It is a science. Numbers of eggs, ounces of flour, degrees of heat, allowances for fan-assisted ovens. On the other end, a fork that comes out clean. And, as often as you like, cake.
Does that mean I bake? No.
What I do make is khichdi - a spiced porridge of rice and lentils. I also make soup, beans in a tomato and coconut milk sauce, and any simple curry I can improvise into an unrecognizable iteration of the cookbook recipe. For now, let's stick with khichdi.
I am the elder daughter of an excellent cook. So it follows that I would love to master at least a few of her culinary specialties. The moringa, potato, and eggplant curry she makes every autumn. And the dilauri - rice and yogurt dumplings soaked in sugar or jaggery syrup, that she makes when we’ve let the rice ferment for longer than we intended.
Instead, I find myself making khichdi.
The recipe is inspired by one included in Bangla Ranna: The Bengal Cookbook, by Minakshie Das Gupta, now out of print. Das Gupta says she wrote down these 200 recipes for her own daughters – progressing from starters to sweets. I have stuck to the khichdi.
My love for the dish began at an ashram in Delhi. I would find myself there after classes when my more practical peers were either at the library or the movies. There I was – filled with questions for the monks whose paths have been described as sharp as a razor's edge and perhaps as straight.
I was seeking their certainty.
On special occasions, after the worship, they would serve generous portions of khichdi to the public. This was (and still is) one of the best dishes I've ever eaten. After collecting my container of khichdi, I'd take to a corner of the manicured lawns. There, on sunny winter afternoons, hiding behind the bushes from families of strangers, is where I learned to love the dish. I finished what I could and carried the rest home.
During that time, I remember meeting a senior monk in his office, and telling him of my many confusions. In response, he smiled, and without looking up from his paperwork, said: So you’re making a whole khichdi out of things.
He meant a mess. He was not wrong.
Yet, in the ashram, it was not a mess but a practical meal. Firstly, it was easier to make and serve in huge portions, compared to rice and curry. Secondly, a khichdi is easy to digest for all. And, when it comes to taste, it is compatible with any number of sides. One can serve it with deep-fried chicken cutlets, shallow-fried eggplant discs, tomato chutney, and roasted papad on the side. Or savour the dish by itself.
Standing in the Ashram gardens, I had no inkling of the hoary tradition of the khichdi. How, in the seventeenth century, the Mughal emperor Jahangir had chosen a spicy version made with millets, peas, and dry fruits to be served on the days he abstained from meat. How his grandson, the last of the Great Mughals, liked it prepared with fish and boiled eggs. This was perhaps the ancestor of the British kedgeree, which frequently features smoked haddock and eggs. All these recipes are as much khichdi as the pared-down six-ingredient version my mother would make us whenever we were down with a flu or a stomach bug.
It is perhaps the only dish to date, that my mother says I make better than she does. But how I make it is less important to me than why I do.
For one, it reminds me of the winter afternoons at the ashram, of finding a space that belonged to me.
Two, I enjoy the improvisational nature of it. It feels deeply forgiving. A dish that satisfied the palates of Mughal emperors, colonisers, and pilgrims felt easy to adapt and claim. In this way, the khichdi has become a central feature in my culinary repertoire.
In making it, one can choose the green lentils instead of the red, swap the rice with quinoa, make a spicy tomato, ginger, and green chili base, use the Bengali five-spice for tempering, or stick to cumin. It all works.
The only quality of khichdi I refuse to be flexible about is the consistency. It must be unworkable with a fork. It should emerge better suited to a bowl, though not unforgiving to a plate. Too wet and it's soup. Too dry and it's pulao.
What then is the secret?
Once I've bunged the spices, rice, lentils, and vegetables into the pressure cooker and closed the lid, I begin to meditate in sync with the intense infusion underway. To the Great Goddess who nourishes all, I send up prayers as the steam spirals skyward:
May the rice not stick to the bottom. May the starch matrix disintegrate. May the aromatics infuse the denatured grains and greens. Under the high heat and pressure of the cooker, may they all come together. May all who eat it, be nourished by it. With your blessings, may the flavours dance on their tongues. May the khichdi nourish their souls.
As the cooker gives its final whistle, I turn off the hob. On the platform, to the left, ghee, black pepper, my mother's homemade garam masala, and bay leaf stand in line for the final tempering. I am considering boiling water to add to the cooker in case the khichdi emerges stodgier than I prefer.
My anxiety must inspire some bemusement.
Surely, by now practice ought to have made perfect.
But, when the khichdi is in the cooker, there is no clean fork to pull out. I have to wait. I have to sniff the escaping steam for notes of burnt caramel popcorn.
No one tells you that when it's all in the cooker - there are no guarantees, only guesswork.
So, it makes sense to ask: why not cook in an open pot? Why not cook by numbers? Why risk a mess?
It makes sense to ask: why not live a more practical life?
Why write?
And I would answer: it is a question of nourishment.
Warmly,
Skendha
The Long View Letters
P.S. What was the first dish you made your own? I would absolutely love to hear.
P.P.S. You can find the two previous issues of my newsletter here and here.
You can unsubscribe anytime
