Cooking Drama With Dolly
She acts, she comperes, she entertains, she also cooks! Dolly Thakore is one versatile woman, finds out Shilpa Rao. We made our way to the home of Dolly Thakore, at Peddar Road, thinking we would find her busy in the kitchen. Instead, she came out of her bedroom, busy on the phone, flashing her famous smile at us. "Are you free for a book reading on Friday?" she asked her caller and after receiving a positive reply from the other end, she turned towards us and coming straight to the point said, "So, should I serve the food now?" The main door draped with a poster of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, opens up to her kitchen from where the lovely aroma of food fills the rest of her creatively done abode. There is not one square inch left for a frame to be put up but Dolly thinks otherwise. The curtains are painted with covers of brochures of plays produced by her son's company, Quasar Productions. "I buy my curtains and get someone to paint them for me. Earlier they were painted with Alyque's productions," Dolly explains.  The walls are decorated with paintings by Raja Ravi Verma, Paul Bhonsle, Sudhir Patwardhan, five paintings by Imtiaz Dharker, a Mother Teresa by Hussain and just the beard of a man by former prime minister V. P. Singh. On the wall opposite the balcony, hangs a painting of a woman sitting by a stream. "B. Prabha painted that one for me in black and white but since I didn't like it that way, I asked her to add colour to it." she said. Pointing near the diwan, she says, "This is my favourite painting, it is by Nasreen Muchhalla. It reminds me of my father." The painting is 3D and has a father and son duo making wooden aero models. Soon, Dolly shows us old newspaper cuttings of her father ‘s aero-models. On learning that the painting reminded Dolly of her father, Kalpana Shah, the owner of Tao Art Gallery, gifted it to her. Moving towards the kitchen, Dolly says she is organizing a dinner for over 100 people and the phone rings incessantly. "So you are coming tonight right? … Three? … Bring them as well!" she tells Farokh Dhondy on the phone. Dolly's love for meat is evident from the two mutton dishes served. "Most of my guests prefer meat to chicken. I enjoy aloo gosht," she says. Dolly tells us about how she hated peeling and cleaning when she was little and her mum asked her to help in the kitchen. "I just hated putting my hands to all that, but when I shifted to London, I had to cook to survive. Slowly, I had 15 to 20 people coming over for lunches on Sundays," said Dolly. Her guest list included Farokh Dhondy, Navin Bhatchala, Roshan Seth, Zora Sehgal, Saeed Jaffrey, Utpal Dutt, Ismail Merchant, Dilip Thakore, (Dolly's ex-husband), and his sister, Shyama. Most of us acted and worked for BBC Radio and went on to be news readers with Doordarshan later," she adds.  She served us the meal asking, "Is it okay if I use my hands to eat? I prefer it that way." Continuing about London in between morsels of food, Dolly tells us, “I had an open-house, like I have here, so friends dropped in at any time, they still do,” she beams. "After all these years, Farokh Dhondy remains one of my closest friends; he is so natural." Farokh incidentally, wrote the script for Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay.She has trained her servants well and they turned out to be wonderful cooks. “I relished their meals. I love eating at home.” she informs. Although she enjoys trying new dishes, she dislikes them experimenting with her recipes. Her present servant Raju, is a marvellous cook. "My son Quasar, loves his cooking and so he lives with him in Versova. He is here to help me with tonight's dinner." Dolly is not in to food. "I eat to survive and I enjoy kheema-aloo, dal gosht and khichdis. "My Sunday meal is taheli, a traditional family dish of rice and meat cooked together. I enjoy this with plain aloo ki sabzi and pudina chutney," she smiles. Her pet peeve is making chapattis. "Everything goes wrong," she says adding, "I am not a great foodie, but I keep a good table. People appreciate my home cooked meals," For small groups of friends, she makes kaukswe, spaghetti or lasagna and salad. Her emphasis is on food being edible and tasty and she avoids going over the top with her meals. "I always know who to invite for what occasion and cook accordingly." says Dolly.  Never one for health food she has now turned to healthy eating. "My standard breakfast is a juice of bitter gourd, dhania sometimes carrots, beetroot, cucumber and palak; with a bowl of papaya and five badaams. I dislike vegetables so after a breakfast like this, the rest of my meals have meat and I have it with a clear conscience. I have arthritis and to deal with it, I consume 3 steamed bhindis sauteed lightly in masala," she smiles.However, Dolly prefers lounging in a corner of her interestingly decorated living room and reading a book than slaving in a hot kitchen. After all, the mind needs stimulation too ! Food for thought that! |
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