Mamoo and Her Masala Dabba

I was five, at best, when I raided mum’s kitchen.

Not for biscuits or a chocolate someone forgot on the top shelf.For the masala ka dabba; that round steel box with tinier containers inside it. Mum had no use of it. I slipped out with it like it was treasure. And it was. It was also, I think, the first time mum looked at me and saw my maternal grandpa’s hunger living again in another body: the love for cooking, feeding, food as a language.

I learnt to connect to people through what they ate and what they refused. Through the way their shoulders loosened when something tasted like home. I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking about food in terms of nutrition, pleasure, satiation, hunger — loneliness, sadness, joy, anger, history. I could go on. I usually do!

As an infant, I’d sit on the porch of our Agra quarter and stare at unripe guavas and amlas on their trees like they were a problem I could solve. I’d ask Bahadur mama to pluck them for me. He’d tell me they weren’t ready. I’d tell him my mom could cook them in the pressure cooker. That was my logic: if it’s not ready, we’ll make it ready.

And then the country kept changing around me.

In Kashmir, I ran wild around the station like I belonged to the season - plucking and eating whatever I could get my hands on: mulberries, cherries, strawberries, peaches, apricots, crab apples. Paradise and purgatory at the same time. I didn’t know restraint. I didn’t know “enough.” I only knew wanting, and the thrill of getting.

Rajasthan gave me ker sangri and gatte ki sabzi and bajre ki roti, food that tasted like heat and thrift and ingenuity. Punjab gave me an orchard lunch of Kinnows and a stomach ache because I did what I always did: I took joy and turned it into excess. Somewhere along the way I learnt I can’t drink sugarcane juice like everyone. 

Jammu was kebabs and an overload of meat with dad - his idea of a good time, and sometimes mine too.

Delhi taught me how spices negotiate. How a good nihari isn’t just flavour, it’s patience. How soft dough becomes crisp, fluffy bread that’s made to soak up gravy like it has purpose. How chaat can be soothing and violent in the same bite; sweet, sour, spiced, salty like the city itself. And I still remember that one winter: ram ladoos, pungent radish, green chutney, me scruffing it down with A like it was urgent.

When I look back, I wonder what I would’ve felt if someone had told me, early on, that this is the kind of journey I’d signed up for. Dad’s job took us places. And each place - its geography, its history, its nature - I remember through produce. Through what was in season, what was available, and what people did with very little.

Add to that a Tamil father with the palate of an Englishman, and a half-Sikkimese, half-Malayali mother who loved cooking - and I was spoilt for choice in the most confusing, beautiful way. Our table was never one thing. It was a collision, compromise and it was invention.

My lunch boxes helped me make friends at school. Brunches, just coffee huddles at my place during college turned into friendships I still hold close. Taking home cooked food to hostel friends in university taught me community in the simplest way: eat, no? 

And somewhere in the middle of all this, I was training with mum in the kitchen without realising that’s what it was. Cooking for 13–20 people at a go, learning scale and instinct. Learning how to keep going even when you’re tired because people are hungry and it matters.

But this isn’t a neat love story.

It’s not to say I’ve always had a progressive, balanced relationship with food. My lack of understanding came knocking violently as a young adult. It turned ugly. Ugly to a point where I genuinely thought there was no return from it.

I ran as far away from the kitchen as I could.

The pantry and fridge became monsters because they were full—full of choice, full of consequence, full of noise. The way I looked came with an assumption that I ate like an elephant, so I did exactly that. I loaded up on things I knew were dangerous in excess and I didn’t stop until it became a health risk more than how “fat” I was, more than how the world measured me.

Loneliness is not a good mix for an already screwed relationship with food. And then there are the comments. The ones people throw casually like they’re complimenting you, when really they’re boxing you in.

“You’re such great marriage material because you know how to cook so well.” 

“You’ll be a great mother because you cook so well and you have this natural maternal attitude.”

“Cooking’s meant for family. I don’t want you cutting kanda bhaji in someone else’s kitchen.”

I can laugh now. But then it hit right where it hurt. It made cooking feel like a leash. Like a role I didn’t choose. Like a soft trap disguised as praise. And at a time when cooking was at war with my ideas of independence, resistance, self-identity… those lines made me want to sever ties with the one thing I truly knew, the one thing I sincerely loved.

So every time someone said, “Mannnn you should start a bakery or a cafe, it’ll rock!” I had no way to believe they meant it in a real, serious way. It sounded like the same old thing in a new outfit; encouragement with an invisible condition.

Still—there’s the inconvenient truth: I am also my father’s stubborn daughter. And my mum’s hopeful pachiii.And a whole lot of “try to stop me.”

How long can silly comments, doubt, disillusionment keep you from loving the way you know best? How long can you pretend you don’t miss the thing that has always made you feel most like yourself?

If anyone told my twenty-something self that I’d find my way back to cooking, I would’ve laughed it off. I would’ve said, “No chance.” and meant it.

And yet, divine providence, life, whatever you want to call it has this interesting way of reminding you that all is not lost. That if you sincerely hope for something, you keep working towards it even when you can’t see the finish line. Even when you don’t fully believe in it yet.

I started again sheepishly.

I cooked and experimented, read, watched, learnt about cuisines, techniques, and ways to try new dishes without breaking the bank. I learnt how to choose alternate ingredients without betraying the soul of a dish. I soaked up theory and returned to the kitchen - the heat, the chopping board, the sounds. Back to the place I had turned into an enemy.

From pantry scraps to scrumptious meals, elaborate dinners for friends and family to hosting my first proper Christmas dinner - there was return. Revival. Healing. 

And then ‘25 happened.

Work, life, and this deep desire to connect with strangers through food. The kind that doesn’t leave you alone even when you’re busy or tired. The idea of a supper club started brewing stubbornly, refusing to be ignored.

From my own family heritage, to bringing cuisines, flavours, and ideas that feel missing from Hyderabad’s food scene, At Judy’s was born.

A year of thinking. Menus that haven’t seen the light of day yet. Doubting if I should do it at all. Testing. Retesting. Adjusting. Wondering if anyone would come. Wondering if I was allowed to take up space this way.

And now… I think I’m ready to express myself again. Ready to make a table where people can arrive as they are; tired, curious, lonely, celebratory, unsure, and leave with something warm inside them.

I hope you come along.

We’ll sit. We’ll eat. We’ll talk. We’ll make food memories worth keeping. And know this—always: there’s another chair, another plate, and a whole lot of food at Judy’s.