The kitchen is often romanticised as a space of love and bonding, essential for the family. But in Indian kitchens, more often than not, women do more than men. From decision-making to the physical tasks, the burden falls on them. In urban India, men are entering the kitchen, but is the system still biased? Do they get more luxuries? We speak to men and women across the country to find out.A once-a-month affair in my home was baking a vanilla cake. A slow wait for the oven to heat up, before the warm, sweet fragrance filled the room. But the 20 minutes that the cake took to rise was followed by an hour of cleaning the kitchen and the kids. Then came the homework runs, tantrums, and, finally, shut-eye. I realised all of it was being done solely by the mother.According to the findings of the National Family Health Survey-5 2019-21, approximately 84% of married women decide what is cooked daily. It adds that 14% of both men and women support physical violence if the wife “does not cook properly”. The World Health Organisation noted in 2023 that over a fifth of all women in India have been subjected to intimate partner violence. The data on the why is negligible.Do men cook?We asked people about their view on cooking, kitchens, and labour.Men who now live alone, or not with their parents, cook more often and are more involved in the kitchen. "I have been helping my mom in the kitchen since my teens, so I pretty much know where everything is. I also cook for myself every evening, so it is just muscle memory at this point,” says Dildar Talukdar, a 20-year-old college student from Delhi.