It’s a day of darkness and gloom; a day of thick clouds and deep blackness. Suddenly, like dawn spreading across the mountains, a great and mighty army appears...well, it’s really just two smiley, happy little kids armed with spatulas, scoops and kitchen scales, but they brighten up the Haryanawalla residence alright. u00a0DY Patil International School student and mini-chef Dua is all smiles, but she’s a little reserved at first. Before she’s had a chance to settle down beside us, her brother, 7 year-old Ali, on the other hand, has hopped across the apartment, pulled a sheet off an electronic organ, commanded his sister to play something, introduced us to the family’s lovebirds and pretty much presented his views on everything that’s going on in the world.

We ask him if he cooks as well. “Ali...eats,” smiles Arwa, mother of the two, as she ruffles his dark hair. Then, nudged by a tiny elbow, she adds, “He helps though. He loves to blend things, he peels garlic....” Dua giggles. She traces her own fondness for cooking back to when their family resided in San José, California (they moved here just three years ago). “When I was small,” starts the 11 year-old, in all seriousness, “my father and I would make pancakes on Sundays and then, one day, we decided to experiment with our pancakes. So, we started making savoury versions, and throwing in vegetables.” u00a0Daddy, Murtuza, who’s an entrepreneur and angel investor (he guides and mentors start-up companies to find funding and to scale-up operations, etc), also loves experimenting with mukhwas, so Dua and her father frequently make their own versions of the after-dinner mouth freshener.

Now, Dua is completely in her element. When her mother interjects with a little trivia about how schools in the US conduct regular health tests to see if children are eating right, Dua begs to take over the conversation. There’s so much she wants to tell us, like how the school’s emphasis on healthy diets led her to create home-made ice-creams, “by freezing pureed fruits mixed with just a little honey.” She has a new idea she hasn’t tried out yet, but wants to soon. “I want to make a guava ice-cream and, just like they serve the sliced fruit on the roads here, I want to include chillies and rock salt in the recipe.”
We ask her what she plans to prepare for us today, and she folds her arms across her chest and instantly replies, “Umm...first let me ask you...What would you like to eat?” When we assure her we’re happy to let her decide, she suggests, “Mango Quesadillas.” Stuffed with cubed, tandoori-style chicken and a lip-smacking masala-mango pulp, the delicious recipe is also her own concoction. We’re not surprised to learn that Dua loves MasterChef Australia, “especially the Junior MasterChef series,” she says, telling us she’d love to participate in the challenge that requires you to pick your own ingredients and then race against the clock to create something interesting, and, “completely your own.”

To learn more than cooking
In that aspiration, Dua is joined by scores of Mumbai kids, who are now flocking to “real,” hands-on cooking classes (as opposed to the old-school, keep-your-kids-busy-for-an-hour classes), eager to learn, not just how to cook, but how to create. Chef Christina Fernandes, part of the team at Le Cordon Bleu-trained Chef Pooja Dhingra’s Le 15 Patisserie, has been conducting classes like these for over 2 years now (Rs 2,000 onwards for a 3-hour long workshop for kids aged 6 to 11 years). “When we teach kids how to make pizzas, they must even make the dough and the sauce from scratch,” Fernandes tells us, explaining that customised classes for kids aged 6 to 11 are also immensely popular. “Cooking, and activities like moulding edible gum-paste into cake ornaments like flowers refines motor skills and boosts hand-eye coordination,” she opines, though she knows that’s not what draws the kids here. “Fun” — that’s the bottom-line, she admits.