Nani’s Chaku

 This is my Nani’s chaku, or knife.  

While knives are incredibly common; an essential tool across cultures, the chaku is unique. It consists of a small blade, about two and a half inches long, shorter than its three inch handle. The handle is built with a gap in the bottom, allowing the knife to fold in half for easy storage. Normally, the blades are quite sharp—suitable for slicing soft fruits or large heads of lettuce—but this one is dull from years of use.  

This chaku is dirty and quite heavily used, but it is one of many my Nani has. Its poor condition is why I am able to access it. This time of year, Nani is in India, as she prefers to spend the summer there, where she can celebrate holidays at her temple. Normally, she brings her best chaku back with her, but this one, in its dull, tarnished condition, was left behind.  

Inscribed on the blade are the letters ANJA, slowly fading. This represents the Kutch town Anjar, where the blade was made before being sold to Nani in Mandvi.   

Though the word chaku is widely known to mean knife in India, its origins are in Mandvi, a small coastal town located in Kutch, one of India’s districts that borders the Arabian Sea. Mandvi is small, and largely non-industrial. Most of its businesses are family-owned, run out of family homes or small storefronts. My grandparents were raised in different towns in India, but their ancestors were from Kutch, and they would always return to purchase unique handmade items, like sarees and blacksmithed goods.  

The chaku is timeless, a staple of my family’s traditions. For generations, the women in my family have purchased knives from Kutch, even when the families moved to other parts of India. While other, more western knives became common, they never deviated from the chaku. The majority of Hindu-Kutchis are vegetarian, so the knife’s small blade functions perfectly to slice vegetables in-hand, directly into sizzling pots of subji or cold chutney, without any of the weight needed to slice meat or fish. Traditionally, women—matrons of the family—handle the cooking in Kutchi households. My Nani has always taken on this task with quiet pride, dedicated to the simple task of feeding her grandchildren.  

My Nani has bought every one of her chakus in Mandvi, Kutch. Though she grew up in Mumbai, her family was from Kutch, and each summer they would return, visiting the family temple and shopping. This tradition has become part of my life—since I was born, Nani has been visiting Kutch, bringing me lehengas, shoes, and sarees. Every couple years she buys a new chaku in Mandvi, always from the same store. There, many chakus sit in the glass display, with blue, black, and gold handles, their blades shiny and pristine. A chaku blade dulls quickly, as it is used in nearly every meal, but every few months their Mumbai home is visited by Abdul, a mobile knife sharpener who sharpens her chaku with a spinning grindstone attached to his bicycle.  

To me, Nani’s chaku is symbolic of traditional, home-cooked Indian food. Nani uses it in every one of her meals, washing the blade quickly as she switches from ingredient to ingredient, never using another knife. She isn’t comfortable with the western knives and their long, heavy design. Normally, she prefers to slice vegetables in her hand, directly into her dishes. Nani’s Gujrati dishes are entirely homemade, based in water and gentle flavors. Most of her recipes were passed down from her grandmother, their taste impossible to replicate and completely different from the spicy, cream-based subjis I find at American Indian restaurants.  

My favorite memories of the chaku are of my grandmother teaching me to use it. My earliest memories of Nani are of her in the kitchen, and as soon as I was tall enough to stand at the counter with her, I wanted to learn. She was happy to teach me and entertain my childish culinary skills, but she didn’t allow me to use the chaku, afraid I’d cut myself. Even though she didn’t allow me to use it, I loved to sit with her, on the porch steps or dining table, as she cut bhindi (okra) or green beans for dinner. Her hands moved deftly, familiar from decades of practice. Only when I was much older, after my 10th or 11th birthday, did she let me use the chaku under her careful watch, but after years of watching her it felt incredibly important to me.  

In 2018, my family visited my grandparents in India, and we went to Kutch. As soon as we entered Mandvi, I knew, because the narrow roads became crowded, covered with stores, along with bicycle and foot traffic. It was just like my grandparents had described. We walked through the streets. Everything seemed to catch my eye, but Nani knew what was best, and directed me towards the best stores, the ones she’d returned to for years, where we purchased high-quality fabric, lehengas, and, of course, chakus. 

My mother purchasing a chaku in 2018

I want my Nani’s chaku to tell the story of Kutch’s craftsmen, and how its small, family owned shops have kept my family connected to it, even as they have moved away, first across India and now to different continents. The chaku is my gateway to Indian culture—ever-present in my childhood memories, now a constant in my cutlery drawer. It represents devotion to Hinduism, expressed through vegetarianism and using food to build community.