I lost someone very, very dear to me, a wonderful, wonderful woman, Edith W.

Thinking about her these past few days, frozen and unable to shed a tear, I am writing this to remember her, lest I forget how much she coloured my life with her love and her adorable quirks.

Edith and her devoted husband had just relocated to Cairo, Egypt for the second time when I was introduced to them. I barely knew them until I spent an entirely exotic Egyptian summer in Cairo as their guest. I was terrified of Edith.

Edith was a curly blonde with piercing blue eyes. This petite and fiery Viennese, so well turned out and particular in her tailored dresses, was always impeccably made up. She was a towering personality, fierce and formidable. I later learned the blonde came from a bottle, but the curlers were firmly in place every night, and not once did I see a hair out of place even well into her 80s. Her toes were always polished even when illness left them swollen. And she still fussed when we visited her over thirty years and counting, insisting everything be perfect, from cocktails to plates of delicious aperitifs. But that was Edith, impeccable.

I really got to know her that summer of 1995, diving right into it. Edith and her husband, equally formidable, were really amazing, welcoming me and treating me like family. They were the most interesting couple, complimenting each other so perfectly, shining beacons for love stories across age, geography and language.

Living with Edith meant I had to really pull up my sub-continental socks and help with housework. She struck awe and inspired terror in me. Edith was a little martinet who ran the house all by herself and spun social webs with one hand, enjoying clubs and parties, romance novels and libraries with as much gusto as she did cabarets and cocktails.

Edith loved to dress up and go out, and we explored restaurants and sights with gusto. While the men worked all day, Edith and I ventured out on little expeditions around the city.

We would go to various supermarkets around Cairo, and little local shops to find the best basterma ( air dried beef, an Egyptian staple). We searched for her favourite endive for salads, and potatoes for roesti, ready roast chickens, hummus and tahini to make up beautiful platters for cocktail hour each evening at home.

I loved her style of cooking, a mish-mash of Indian, Austrian and Egyptian food, with a dollop of Swiss from her days during the War when she was sent there to safety from her hometown of Vienna.

Edith was very generous with herself and her time. She decided to instruct me on cooking so that I would be well-versed in family favourites. I was happy to learn the secrets of potato roesti, meat loaf and salad dressing- recipes I continue to use till date, with a collection of ‘Edith recipes’ in my old notebook.

We also visited the local VHS library every few days, stocking up on the latest films to binge watch after the laundry was in the machine. I did not know until recently that she relished horror movies, while I am absolutely terrified of them!!

This afternoon time was our time together. We did the housework and shopping, we ate light lunches of tortellini pasta or salads, and then we sank into a movie in the dark, air conditioned room. June in Cairo is abnormally hot. Outside was unbearable. We hid away in the air conditioning and surfaced only after sunset.

Edith kept an elegant, perfect home, all by herself with the help of a local domestic who did the heavy cleaning every few days.

Edith was determined to share her Cairo with me and I was so lucky to experience it through her eyes. I lived the life of an expat thanks to her warm heart, with languorous days by the Mena House Pool, under the Pyramids of Giza. I sipped local karkadeya juice at the tiny Oberoi Cafe in the centre of the Khan-el-Khalili market, Alladin’s most magical labyrinth.

We went to the British Club library and found books to read, as we sipped on cocktails ( Egypt had very strict rules about public drinking). The local baklava shop was a very fancy one, and every week Edith would point me there to choose treats for the week ahead. I have never tasted such delicious baklava as I have In Egypt.

Edith had the most wicked sense of humour and her language was also a mish-mash like her cooking and made for much hilarity, memories of absurd, hysterical laughter at something she had said. Together we giggled over the Cairo needle she found ridiculously phallic and the sighed over the elegant barouches by the Nile, and the feluccas, so glorious and old world, sails afloat. I did fall in love with the darouches, the dervishes, on touristy dinners floating down the Nile.

Knowing my love for history, Edith was determined I didn’t miss any of the sights. Every weekend we went to a different museum or monument. While I was absolutely awed by the magnificence and history of the Pharoas, I found their obsession with death, well, morbid.

The stunning Cairo Museum in Tahrir Square was a marvel too. I am still appalled at how much loot from Egypt is in museums across the world, including the Louvre.

Cairo Museum is famous for King Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus and his mummy. What I loved most was the jewellery of lapis and other stones, royal mummies and sarcophagi, stone carvings and canopic jars for the royal organs.

The papyrus paintings were all dedicated to the Gods and to Death, but I did manage to collect art that still adorns my walls. My favourite is the Goddess Nyut who is the mother goddess and who gives birth to the world, painted against blue heavens, as she curls around the world.

I climbed the great Gizeh Pyramids to the entrance, went down the tunnel and saw the crypt but by then everything was already so commercial, the spirits had long vanished and I felt no sense of connection.

We went on camel back to the Pyramids and took kooky tourist photos. What struck me was how beautifully adorned the camels were in local style; replete with kilims and tassels in bright wool. The Sphinx was as magnificent as we have heard, mysterious and funny with its nose chipped off.

I was treated to a Nile cruise from Luxor to Karnak, and that was the highlight of both my trips to Cairo. I still cannot forget the most refreshing Egyptian style lemonade served as a welcome drink on the Oberoi Sheriyar Nile cruiser. Back then, India’s Oberoi chain had a strong presence in Egypt with some absolutely beautiful luxury properties and this cruise ship was just one of them.

Our trip began with a flight from Cairo to Luxor where we stayed at the local Oberoi, greeted by imposing Sikh durbans, maybe my memory is hazy but I do remember this struck me as lovely.

At the time, the civil war in Rwanda was at its peak and terrorism in Egypt, too. Tourism was at an all time low and we were barely eight people on board the cruiser, floating down the Nile. How I relived my memories of the film, ‘Death on the Nile” ( no such luck, and no Hercule Poirot). There was a costume party that night and we were offered belly dancing outfits and fez caps but I was too shy to try it. We shook a leg with the wobbling belly dancer and enjoyed the dinner and cocktails, as sailing up the Nile from Luxor to Karnak that night.

We had spent all day at the temples of Luxor, admiring rows and rows of sphinxes and tall lotus embellished columns. I wished I had learned more Egyptian history, all ancient history has always fascinated me. All I had was a Time Life photo book on Egypt, biblical stories about Moses and the Pharoas, and a history chapter on ancient Egypt by the lovely Swati Kamat, Professor of history at Sophia College, Bombay.

The history blew my mind. The architecture and the stories our lovely gentleman guide regaled us with were achingly beautiful. Despite this ancient culture’s obsession with life and death, it was a marvel of human achievement: all these magnificent temples and tombs and obelisks; hieroglyphs everywhere and carvings of people, everything told a story. Despite all the grave robbers, the Egyptians still venerated their ancient relics and knew tourism was the only way forward.

Karnak was fascinating. We went to the Valley of the kings and the Valley of the Queens. there were so many buried tombs across the valleys, but Queen Hatshepshut’s was the largest, most grand temple. What struck me was a very clear image of the Parsi angel, Ashhofarowar, above the entrance to her temple. So much of ancient culture is inspired and linked to each other, I was not remotely surprised.

Our grand expedition to Luxor and Karnak was peppered with more tombs, intense heat from the summer sun, son-et-lumiere shows and a hilarious western couple who held every tomb wall and shut their eyes to “feel it”. They held on to every monument this way, slowing our progress, and giving us endless reason to giggle. The remaining guests were some very stylish Colombians who were really nice and lamented they did not like the local mud coffee ( Egyptian coffee has a thick muddy residue and is very, very sweet).

My favourite place to go was the Khan-el-Khalili market, an ancient Cairene bazar as old as time. As we meandered through the maze of stalls filled with local blown glass in bright cerulean blues and vivid greens, kilims and souvenirs, papyrus and food, I was mesmerised, more than at any other place in Egypt. Here was living, breathing history. The streets were narrow and cobbled and I imagined the forty thieves chasing Ali Baba or any of my favourite Arabian Nights movies being filmed here, or actually happening here in ancient times. Shopkeepers were very friendly and begged to know if we knew Amitabh Bachchan, welcoming us like family, showering us with sweet black tea and little gifts. We shopped for local Turkish delight and dined on kababs and Om Ali, their version of rice kheer. I still wonder if the 1LE burger was meat or camel – oh man 😦

I came home with a bright blue glass vase that survived twenty eight years before one of my cats knocked it off the shelf.

Edith left us this year, and I could only honour her with this piece on my memories of Egypt with her, her friendship, and affection for me; her deep disappointment in me on several dubious life choices I made, and her always unstinting love and support to me and my child.

I remember a lovely wintry Sunday afternoon spent at the famous Andreas, a local restaurant below the pyramids of Gizeh, where we dined on pigeon and chicken and all sorts of local yummies. I tried to recreate a figment of that afternoon with the family this week. Good memories and good taste mingled over beetroot hummous, kababs, lemony roast chicken and falafel.

Food, memories of food and the people we eat with are more enduring than any other, especially when the food is prepared with love and passion and meant to be shared.