Anything old is often ascribed to memory. For this writer, it's the time spent in the dimly-lit kitchen of her grandmother, watching her vigorously crush and pound grated coconut and chillies on the stone grinder to prepare the tangy raw mango chutney that we enjoyed with dosa. And how she'd tug at the fiery broken tree barks clubbed inside the gaping hole of a brick stove, to control the billowing flames that threatened to blacken the large aluminum rice-cooking pot.

She never cooked rice on the gas stove. We never asked why. But living where she did, in a bucolic hinterland, surrounded by trees of all kinds with fruits of all shapes, food was always sourced from what she grew, and prepared as sustainably as possible. Modern appliances were not alien to her kitchen, but she was possessive about how she fed the family. It's this "possessiveness," passed down generations, that add value to items from old kitchens.