Store Tales
Growing up in Sri Lanka, I was always fascinated by the little window frames you find in wayside grocery stores and restaurants. I found myself peering in, to catch a glimpse into the people, colors, and conversations that happened beyond. When my Amma (mother) started her own little rice and curry restaurant I found myself behind the frame for the first time - becoming a part of the food, spices, and gossip of the unseen world behind and beyond.
This body of work blends a childhood fascination with an exploration of how those beyond the storefronts of restaurants and grocery shops make sense of their relationships with home, migration, gentrification and the changing urban spaces outside. I went from the quaint spice shops in Somerville to the dimly lit grocery stores in Redwood City, California to the famous döner kebab joints in Alexanderplatz, Berlin finding the stories we missed as we went about our otherwise fleeting transactions.
‘Store Tales’ was part of the ‘Together / Alone’ exhibition
showcased at the Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley.
Chapter 1
Maharagama, Sri Lanka
March 2003
My Amma (mother) ran a little rice and curry shop in front of our rented home in the bustling market town of Maharagama. The shop had a cream colored name board with ‘Grandma’s Kitchen’ sprawled across in lilac paint. The shop was named after my Achiamma, who spent a good part of her life grinding spices and mixing unworldly concoctions of chilies, from whom my mother learned the tricks of the art.
We sold everything from fried rice and biriyani to authentic Sri Lankan staples like appa and kottu. I would get off the school van everyday at 2.15 and rush off to claim my seat behind the counter, shuffling through thick bundles of twenty rupee notes while peeking my head through the little takeout window to catch the rich smell of cinnamon, chillies and onions sizzling in a pan for a new batch of dhal curry. I would listen to Amma and Raja; her helper complain about demanding customers, the fight at the record bar next door and the landlord’s constant hints of raising the rent.
The takeout window opened up a completely different world for me - a world of spices, curry, color, and conversations. A glimpse into the tangled lives of the people who came into our little shop from villages far away in search of a place in the city. One day in April, the road development authority came by to tell us that our little road will be widened by twenty meters and that the shop will have to go.
This is a little escapade from the quaint spice shops in Somerville to the famous döner kebab joints in Alexanderplatz, in search of the stories I have missed (and those you had skipped) as we went about our otherwise fleeting transactions.
Chapter 2
Somerville, Boston
February 2019
"ad loca aromatum," he said.
To the places where the spices are.
‘Kandy Spice - Sri Lankan Cinnamon and Spice Bled’ read the beige color label on a miniscule bottle of what looked like ‘tunapaha’ - curry powder. The smell reminded me of Saturdays at Achiamma’s. The price, however, would have confused Amma who complains daily about the mudalali who gives her next to nothing for a kilo of cinnamon from our backyard.
A man in a red Patagonia bought a brown paper bag full of spice boxes. Before I left there was another forty dollar purchase for a ‘spice spoon.’ Only if Amma knew.
Chapter 3
Bombay Market, Union Square
February 2019
“Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric, it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck.”
~ The Mistress of Spices ~
We waited for a few minutes for Jeetendra to turn up, till then I traced through rows of Basmati rice sacks, sweet lapsi, papadam, and dhal.
‘Winters are usually less crowded. No one really comes out. I mean it is cold so it would make sense for a warm curry but business is very slow’
Redwood City, California
April 2019
‘La solución es mudarse a otro estado donde el alquiler sea más asequible’
the solution is to move to another state where rent is affordable because here it is not
- Andrea Peña , La Estrellita -
Chapter 6
January 2019
Harvard Square, Boston
‘Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.
Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages
of middle-aged people. Fennel, smelling of changes to come.
Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. The day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out.
Day of suicide, day of murder.’
- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices
Chapter 5
Alexanderplatz, Berlin
March, 2019
Turks are the largest ethnic group of non-German origin in Berlin and many believe that the döner kebab was actually first created in Berlin by a Turkish guest worker named Kadir Nurman in 1972. He sold his first döner kebab in West Berlin across from Bahnhof Zoo.
At 26, Nurman emigrated from Turkey to Stuttgart in 1960 as part of a major initiative in West Germany at the time to increase its labor force. Six years later, Nurman came to Berlin to work in the printing business but quickly noticed that there weren’t many substantial options for busy German workers looking to eat lunch on the go.
Deriving his idea for the döner kebab as we know it today from the typical meal of Turkish royalty consisting of meat skewers served on a plate with rice and vegetables, Nurman wanted to make this tasty dish more portable. Thus, he simply wrapped these ingredients in a kind of bread known as durum, and voila! The döner was born.
