Making Avial

KITCHEN SCENE (OIL ON CANVAS 60 X 90).This is a picture of traditional Kerala  kitchen.As a newly wed ,I spent some time in my in law's ancestral home . My husband’s aunt was in charge of the kitchen there. She used to prepare food in traditional choola though there was a gas stove.She used to keep salt in a  horlics bottle and dried chillies in a Amul tin on the platform. As the bulb above the choola was always blackened due to the constant smoke ,she used to light a small lantern. A painting on this nostalgic scene.
In this picture Mother is cutting yellow cucumber for making ‘Avial ‘a traditional curry.Water with some turmeric powder and coconut oil is kept boiling in a stone vessel called Kallumeri in which she will put the chopped vegetables to make Avial.Rice is being cooked in the second choola.Milk is boiled to prepare curd in an earthen-pot.The manual stone grinder,in which coconut and masala are ground to paste is also can be seen.You can also see Narayani the washer woman is washing clothes out side kitchen.There were no washing machines-clothes were dipped in soap water,pummelled on the stone slab and rinsed .