By Rochelle Potkar

Excerpted from the novel “The D’Costa Family” by kind permission of the author.

Rita was soon back into the realm of daily grind: the insurgency of spices for the sorpotel and vindaloo, the crisp frying of rechado rava-coated prawns, the bubbling of rice that let out a briny foam from its handi. All this that went straight up her nostrils, making her eyes moist, but whose sizzling was music to her ears. Her kitchen that also had a spare clay stove and brass utensils was her island of solace, where Annette — Pedro’s blue-eyed wife was slitting raw pomfrets to stuff rechado masala into them.