“What’s the problem in cooking for a few people? It just takes two hours. I enjoy cooking.”

I’ve seen many men post something along these lines on social media ever since the movie Mrs, the Hindi remake of the Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen, released on February 7. The fact that this was their only takeaway made me boiling mad, although it didn’t surprise me.

My mom was a working woman who managed the household as well. At 40, my dad quit his job and told us he would handle the house while mom worked. He figured he could write his book in the oodles of free time he would have left with.

The first week went well. He shifted the cupboards to clean underneath them and got two chapters of the book done. Then came the week of baingan-aloo. He sat down one night and made enough for the whole week. I have not eaten this preparation since then. Dad was soon miserable, as the reality of what staying at home meant began to sink in — it was about more than just housework. He had lost the........

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