Women and Kitchen have an inseparable love hate affair. Some find their identity here and some loose. Some are territorial about it and some are carefree. Devaki recites India’s well known author Dhiruben Patel’s kitchen poems and takes on a tour of our own kitchen and helps you understand the women in them better. “

 Dhiruben Gordhanbhai Patel is born on 29 May 1926 in Vadodara to Gordhanbhai Patel, a journalist with the Bombay Chronicle, and Gangaben Patel, a political activist and member of the All India Congress Committee. Her family belongs to Dharmaj village near Anand

Dhiruben Patel has written several collections of short stories and poetry as well as novels. She has written radio plays and stage plays. Her work is influenced by  Gandhian Ideals.

This podcast is an adaptation of her bestseller ‘Kitchen Poems’

The poem describes the kitchen which as in the centre of the house it seemed as if the kitchen was calling them. Everybody has memories of their kitchen. We all have spent our childhood in the kitchen. We have sat on the platform, have seen our mother cooking, and have learnt so many things in the kitchen. From sweets to snacks to her love she has severed everything to us from that kitchen. But she has never mixed her emotions of anger or her discomfort in the food. Women knows it all from a small jars, utensils, spices to all the minute things in the kitchen our mothers, grandmothers have been Sherlock Holmes! She’d not have studies math but her count of utensils or kitchen things have always been accurate.