Chicken Tikka Wings With Mango-Chilli Chutney Glaze and Yogurt Raita

I killed my first chicken when I was five. My Aba (grandfather) thrust its knobbly feet at me, and told me hold on tight and with one smooth, practiced motion he twisted its neck off, drained the blood and dunked the whole bird into a vat of boiling water. Fast, clean, precise – and I didn't even blink through the whole process. Plucking the bird afterwards wasn't great, but my little fingers made fast work of those little pin feathers, much faster than Aba's gnarly, work weathered hands. Showing that dexterity may have been a mistake, though, since I was always, thereafter, made to do the feather plucking – easily the most boring job ever, especially for a hyperactive five year old.

After that first time, Aba and I have killed more chickens. I didn't see him all that much, as we lived in town and he lived in the small village he called home. But every summer my sister and I were unceremoniously bundled into a bus, and packed off to my grandparents' place where we ran wild with all the other neighbourhood kids. Our school holidays were during April and May, and May was wedding season. Aba was a wedding chef, and a master butcher, which meant that he was out almost every night, if it wasn't a wedding, it was a christening, a jubilee celebration, a church event.

My grandmother would also be invited, and a lot of the time we tagged along. The wedding feast usually started with a ceremonious parade of all the live animals and birds that would be served at the feast. They would be taken to a nearby farm, or abattoir, where my grandfather, along with other males in the wedding party, would butcher them. Aba would then expertly chop everything up, and start the long cooking process that officially marked the start of the wedding feast. Everyone had a job, and with the precision of a seasoned chef, he made sure everything was being sauteed, simmered and salted to perfection. It was hot, dusty and pots and pans clanged, and fires flickered and spit and sizzled. The air was thick with the smell of cooking, a hundred different aromas, somehow blending harmoniously and wafting into the surrounding homes and villages. Candles dripped wax, and eerie shadows danced on soot stained fire pit walls. In the middle of it all, my Aba, a commanding presence, striding to where ever he was called, never once sitting down, never once consulting a recipe.

The cooking went late into the night. We wandered around, bored, but excited at the same time. Around midnight, we would usually be found curled into a ball in a corner somewhere, fast asleep. We almost always woke up at home, and for the life of me, I don't know who carried us back and tucked us up into our sleeping straw mats. Aba came back the next afternoon, once the wedding was done and all the food was served. We would be up and chirpy, we knew there were leftover wedding food  in his bags that we would eagerly dive into. We were then dispatched outside so Aba could sleep in peace, and the process started all over again the next day.

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