Nisha Madhulika looks like the aunt whose kitchen was your favourite haunt during your holidays. Yes, the one who had a warm, kind manner and knew how to satiate your soul’s cravings with meals that you will not find in any restaurant just because no chef can cook the way she can. She is in no hurry to impress anyone in the kitchen, takes her time over the bubbling pans, kneads the dough like she is coaxing it to life and then effortlessly but with great precision, serves a perfect bhatura glistening with joy. Accompanied by rich, aromatic chholas garnished with slivered ginger.
Her success as a YouTube blogger demonstrates how just about anyone with a passion can democratise the business of food.
She is definitely not one of the dress code conscious bloggers who throng
food events with expensive cameras, distract and disturb everyone with loud guffaws and behave like celebrities. She is someone who does not sell her own persona. Infact, she does not sell anything. She just cooks and is today one of the top YouTube bloggers in the country. And all she has invested in is some equipment to make the videos look professional. Hers is a success story based on merit and she is one of favourite cooks on YouTube especially because she does not take short cuts. Neither does she complicate stuff.
Also check out her website (http://nishamadhulika.com/en) to recreate forgotten favourites like Achari arbi, Punjabi Masala Mathri, Patishapta pitha, Sai bhaji, Makhana raita and more. She has basically taken the route away from food bloggers who flaunt their understanding of international recipes and taken us all, eyes misting with nostalgia, into the very heart of pure as desi ghee traditions of Indian cooking that we associate with our childhoods, with a time when cooking was thing for the soul and not for an instagram pic. She even has recipes in Hindi and is an inspiration to legions of home cooks who are comfortable cooking their kind of food and speaking in their mother tongue.
Master chefs may be ruling the waves but Nisha Madhulika and her ilk will rule that space where marketed ideas lose their flavour but good food cooked with heart and soul is an eternal memory.
with Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, a translator who recently interpreted Dominican poet Josefina Baez’s book Comrade Bliss Ain’t Playing in Hindi, an artist, a former Urdu RJ and a mother. She won an award for her writing/book from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University, has written for a host of national and international magazines since 1994 on cinema, theatre, music, art, architecture and more, has exhibited her art in India and the US…and hopes to travel more and to grow more dimensions as a person. And to be restful, and alive in equal measure.