Icing on the cake

Life is not always a piece of cake. Just when you think it looks perfectly done, springy to the touch, filling the room with its fresh aroma ... and you decide it's time to slice it, you hit a hard, overdone, crusty bottom.

But tough people have a way of dealing with tough crusts. They simply slice them away and get down to enjoying the rest of the perfect cake.

Anita Madhanayake is one such tough person. About 10 years ago her life suddenly took a different turn. At the time she was 25, dynamic and buzzing with ambition as a professional at a leading international bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Happily married, life sounded to her like a beautiful tune.

Then she contracted dengue fever. In a critical condition, she battled the disease for a month. Although she was cured of it ("It's a miracle I survived", she says), the disease took its toll - her hearing deteriorated.

With time, it worsened and within a year she had completely lost her sense of hearing. As a result, she quit her job and swapped her busy, active life for a quiet, silent one. Her world held no more beautiful tunes.

Time, which had been a luxury before, was now plentiful ... but she had no idea what to do with such unexpected plenty.
Devastated and longing to be able to hear again, she felt herself slipping into depression.

But even as she was sliding, she kept her grip on reality. Till one day she decided to pull herself together and get back on firm ground. One of her greatest supporters through this ordeal was her husband, Gehan.

A couple of years later Anita and Gehan moved to Dubai. Meanwhile, she was attempting new things to keep herself occupied.

She learnt embroidery and realised it had a calming effect on her even as it helped her explore her creativity. But the needlework began to take its toll on her back and she was forced to slow down.

Then, one day, while at a bookshop, she picked up a book on baking. She read it cover to cover and decided to try out some of the recipes. To her surprise, the first cake she baked turned out delicious.

Encouraged by Gehan, (and her first attempt) she began taking a greater interest in baking. She bought a bigger oven, the baking paraphernalia and set off on a course that has brought her a long way from her initial days of depression. Today she beams with joy.

"I began to derive more and more satisfaction (as I baked)" and eventually, she experienced a sense of achievement. "What I had lost seemed to be coming back in another form," she says.

Anita converses by lip reading. When you first meet her, she is so adept at it that it's difficult to believe that she cannot hear.

As her cakes turned into coveted items among friends, she realised she had inadvertently stumbled on to a new occupation. Soon, she was selling cakes to friends and Gehan's colleagues, and every single cake was relished - right down to the last crumb. Plus, there were no crusty bottoms to slice off.

The turning point was when Jessica Sutherland, Gehan's general manager, requested her to make a wedding cake for her big day.

"It felt great (to be) entrusted with such a big responsibility," she says, "(though) I realised it was not going to be an easy task. I had never baked a wedding cake before and that too such a big one!"

Despite her apprehensions, she took it up as a challenge.

"I am glad I did," she says. "Because I was not the same Anita anymore. (The realisation) that I could pull off major commercial orders single-handedly made a huge difference (to my self-confidence)." Not to forget the appreciation and compliments that poured in ...

It took her 12 hours of baking to get the wedding cake to the table and it was a moment that made her realise that she could turn her new hobby into a professional endeavour.

"It took her a long time to come to terms with the abrupt change in her professional life (due to her illness)," says Gehan. "It shattered her to have to give up her career.

"After Jessica's wedding cake, her lost confidence returned."

In January last year, Anita enrolled in a three-month baking course with Wilton at Tavola in Jumeirah to hone her skills further. Today, she bakes cakes for all occasions - birthdays, anniversaries, weddings .... In fact, Gehan and Anita are soon planning to set up a pastry shop.

- Those interested in getting in touch with Gehan can do so at gehan_anita@hotmail.com