My cook has quit. As living alone in Mumbai goes, this is the third-worst thing that can happen to you after bad neighbours, and being a single, Muslim girl who works in the media business. After two weeks of butter chicken rolls from Mini Punjab (garnished with my tears), I’m at the end of my wits and my liver’s life cycle. Efforts to find a replacement are on, but in Mumbai, searching for a cook is like searching for an open space; there aren’t many, and rich people have already snapped up all the good ones.

Between my mum, my aunts, and our neighbours, I got fat off an army of incredible female cooks. I was never told cooking is a woman’s job, but growing up in an environment filled with women who loved doing it, I realise now that I was conditioned to believe that. Representation pic/Thinkstock