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POSTED: 26 APRIL 2010 Jaspreet Singh, Chef Bloomsbury | 256pp paperback | $29.99 Kirpal Singh (aka Kip) has brain cancer. He is following the same train route he followed 14 years earlier to Kashmir and the India-Pakistan battleground. This time it is to cook the wedding meal for Rubiya, daughter of his former commanding officer, General Kumar. In Chef, his new second novel, the pragmatic and deeply personal reasons for Kip's decision to return to Kashmir are unfurled in a cleverly crafted and moody story by Jaspreet Singh. Kip plans to prepare the perfect banquet, and then the General will help him to get the treatment that might save him. It's a practical plan — medical specialists would not normally treat an insignificant former soldier, not even one who has excelled as the top brass's chef, and especially not one shadowed by whispers and secrets from long ago. But what occupies more of Kip's consciousness during his journey are the profound personal motives he carries — ghosts of the past and feelings that remain unresolved from earlier times and that he can hardly articulate. There is the mystery of his father's death, the reunion with Rubiya and its possibilities — especially of discovering more about Irem, a captured Pakistani woman, who almost brought his career to ruin. And his relationship with the complex Kishen, the chef-mentor-father figure who gave him his passion for food and cuisine. There is much that is painful in this story — pointless war, the inequities between class and gender, religious intolerance, and individual despair. But woven through the narrative is such a wonderful joy, affection, enthusiasm and excitement about ingredients, food preparation, cooking and eating — such a fundamental human fascination that seems to defy the torments of life. A quite hypnotic read. You will not be disappointed with this tale. Little wonder it was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. |
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