KARACHI: Zubaida Tariq, lovingly known as Zubaida Aapa to all those who never missed her cooking shows to note down recipes and valuable tips, died of a heart attack on Thursday night and was buried on Friday afternoon.

Born into a well-educated family of Hyderabad Deccan on April 4, 1945, Zubaida was only three when her family sailed to Karachi after the fall of the Hyderabad state in 1948. The youngest of nine siblings, including (late) writer Fatima Surayya Bajia, satire writer, host and artist Anwer Maqsood and poet Zehra Nigah, designer Sughra Kazmi, Zubaida herself only hit fame after the age of 50, when she became recognised for her culinary skills.

But even there, she wasn’t always an expert in the beginning. In fact, in her own words, the first time she tried her hand at cooking karhi (a yoghurt and gram flour curry) after her marriage, she was only 21 and so disappointed with the result that out of embarrassment she tossed out the entire dish over the back wall of her home in Jamshed Quarters. Then when her husband came home from work and wondered what they were having for dinner, she sweetly suggested to him that they go out for dinner.

At home before marriage, she didn’t venture much into the kitchen as she already had older sisters to help their mother with the household chores. Besides, she was expected to concentrate more on her studies than doing any housework. But still having a good observation and being a good listener, too, she was able to pick up a lot from the regular discussions of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents that she overheard while growing up in a joint family system. It paid well after marriage as she started taking an interest in her home, and learnt to cook through trial and error until she mastered everything, which was just as well because her husband liked inviting friends and associates at home for dinner.

It was during one such occasion that she impressed a very special guest, who was looking for someone to head the food advisory service in his company. She took the job when it was offered to her and worked there for some seven years. While still carving out a niche in the culinary world, she was offered another job with a spices company where she allowed them use her neatly-written recipes at the back of the space packets and boxes.

It wasn’t long before she turned into a trusted brand. Her cooking shows on various television channels were call-in shows where women viewers regularly asked her advice about all kinds of things from how to cook something to how to wash coloured clothes or home remedies for various ailments. She was also a regular guest at radio shows aired from FM stations, giving sincere advice to listeners calling in live.

She also taught women a thing or two about grace and how to stay well-groomed. With not a hair out of place, she was also admired on TV for her beautiful saris (she is said to own hundreds of saris) and matching bangles as she cooked several dishes in a single show with absolute ease, making it look so easy and effortless to the viewers as well until they tried making the same on their own. Then on learning that she also ran a couple of restaurants in the city, they would head out there.

Of course her popularity also resulted in parody accounts using her name on social media, especially Twitter, where someone or the other would offer hilarious advice to politicians, etc.

Her funeral prayers were offered at Sultan Masjid in DHA after Juma prayers. She was laid to rest in the DHA graveyard.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2018