HAPPINESS IS HOMEMADE

Author Rekha Gupta

Abundance ! We are living in times of abundance and have a plethora of choices for almost everything including food . Yet why do I see and feel scarcity and paucity? Paucity of connection, love, togetherness and satiation of our souls? Why is it that all the gourmet food of restaurants hotels may excite us a lot but do not satiate us???

Unbelievable for most people, I married at a young age of 16. Both my mother & mother in law despite being such great cooks never forced me to do cooking as a house hold chore or something that a girl ought to know and do . Hence my journey of cooking developed on its own, when I chose to, and for all the right reasons , it was hobby, passion, love, affection all combined together.😇 And this is what this blog is about. To remove pre conceived notions and to develop and retain cooking as an art amongst both girls and boys in our country alike.

I firmly believe if one wants to be one’s best in whatever one chooses to, then there are no short cuts , only willingness & patience can make it happen. C@Rg

This blog may seem a bit cliched to few ,a good read for some, and maybe impactful to only a handful. I’ll be glad and happy. I touch upon a topic that is close to my heart, integral to Indian culture, a hobby for some and successful profession for many.

So yes its about food and specially HOME COOKED FOOD. Mindsets of girls and women’s have changed drastically over the last 15 – 20 years with regard to home cooked food, and to now alarming levels. Cooking at home has a huge gender bias in our country and still has and is more or less seen by many as a menial, just any other, household chore. A few recent incidents and harmless comments to say the least left me baffled and wondering as to which way is our delicious Indian food really headed . If we as a community will not (a) respect it (b) cook it (c)nourish our family with it (d) pass it on to generation next. In one instance one of my daughter’s friends upon seeing a delicious dish being churned out by her commented that she (the friend) is so pampered that she doesn’t need to enter the kitchen !!! As if cooking made my daughter any less pampered. In tier two cities often you will hear parents coaxing their daughters to study else after marriage “rasoi sambhalna padega”. If this is not deinegrating, what is? In another instance a mid age mother of a teenage daughter proclaimed with pride that neither will her daughter cook now nor in the future ever as it is a menial chore meant for domestic helps and it renders educated and working girls regressive. Well according to me, its this thought process that is regressive and not cooking as an activity.

Undermining self cooked food , will distance us from our heritage & culture , roots and family completely.

As long as there is life , food with positive energy to nourish families is needed and I strongly feel only a wife and a mother can provide. (without any gender bias here) . However I do feel everyone should know cooking 🙂

Lets us evaluate the reasons for this parochial line of thinking and see if we can work around it :-

1. It’s a menial mundane chore . :- We are all racing mindlessly in the 21st century to make big bucks, at the end of the day to have a hearty home cooked meal. No amount of ordering on line can get that feeling which a meal cooked by a wife, mother or daughter and in todays times even dads and sons can get. So first please stop thinking of cooking as a chore. Have you ever wondered why MasterChef is becoming a favourite show season after season with loyal audiences the world over ? Well I have a feeling they are silently trying to inculcate in all , that dying art of home cooking by emphasising in their show that cooking is a skill that pays well and puts you right there at centre of the world stage.

2 . We and our daughters are highly educated,and career minded, cooking whats that?? :- So yes while we all understand that education is super important for financial independence, what about being self reliant in every aspect. Our little one learnt cooking once she went to hostel. The need and desire to eat home cooked food was so strong. Completely her choice. She spends hours studying design, pursuing hobbies and chilling with friends. But then she also has to has to cook as she loves her home cooked pao bhaji ….and Im one smiling mother back home.C@Rg

3 . Indian Food is too consuming and takes hours to cook.:- Well yes I agree to that, and in times where children are studying and both parents are working, cooking at home can be really tough. But how about at least one home cooked meal? responsibility shared by all? or lavish meals preserved for weekends? Im sure all of us can work around this, but only if our thinking changes and we realise the importance of home cooked meals.

4. Whats the fuss over self cooking and when we can keep cooks and helps at home: Well we all know the answer to this. If push comes to shove and you are extremely busy, you may as well as keep a help or cook , but do try and be involved in some way. As the old saying ‘cooked with love’ is absolutely true because positive vibrations of the family member can take a meal to another level. And this is not philosophical as much as scientifically proved by a Japanese scientist ‘Masaru Emoto‘ according to whom the positive or negative vibrations of humans are instantly transferred and change the molecular composition of water .

5. Indian Food gets too boring….same old daal chawal- Well to start with, we have so many varities of lentils that we should’nt be complaining at all. and we are experts in cooking them in different styles unlike our western counterparts. To top it, if you knew even half of the benefits of eating this potent combination of daal rice, believe me you might end up eating it in all 3 meals. Ha ha Jokes apart, Indian food is too exhaustive to ever complain of same old menu. Just rack you brains and fix yourself a new meal every time. And who is saying you can’t have that occasional meal outside.

6. My mom is not a good cook and I enjoy restaurant food more : HaHaHa , As hilarious as this may sound, it is quite true in many households. Well to them I can only say, the sooner you wear the apron , the better. It is always a good idea to be able to cook yourself eventually then depend on anyone.C@Rg

7. PAMPERING: Our kids are a pampered lot. Why should they cook as we have a fleet of helps and cooks at home. Fair enough, however just as you would encourage them for tennis or driving or playing the guitar, please do so with cooking as well. Also this line of thinking is drastically wrong If I may say so at the risk of sounding judgemental -as from my own experience I can say that when I started cooking at a young age of 16-17 after my early marriage, both set of my parents were so ecstatic and elated as if I had won a Master Chef title, at least in our big huge family , they had declared me as one ! and believe me this sure was the most encouraging and empowering feeling for me ever !

While it is true that in todays modern world women are striving to be at the forefront alongside men on the career front, balancing domestic activities is not only challenging but often takes backseat and is deemed irrelevant for many. However cooking as a domestic activity cannot loose its significance in this mayhem. The onus is also on other family members to appreciate whosoever is cooking for them , be it husband or wife and to constantly acknowledge and appreciate them . This one small gesture, i.e lack of appreciation is one of the several reasons why women see it as a menial job. So if we need to uphold this , we need to do it collectively. This way we, in our own small individual way are making sure not to undermine either the person or the art of cooking itself.

We hail from, a country where the mother, wife, daughter who cooks is as Revered as ”Maa Annapurna” as Life begins with food and food sustains and nourishes Life. Food was always cooked at home. We follow a ritual of ‘bhagvan ji ko bhog lagana” before partaking any thing which turns food into Prasad making it more sacred & empowering. So how can something as sacred & thats life giving be menial or mundane?

So for me actually self cooking is not a choice, its a Sacred Ritual that has to be followed passionately from the heart . For those who need more reasons to convinced, well to them I can say not only is cooking creatively satisfying, its therapeutic in a way unknown to many – It is nothing less than the highest expression of love ,affection ,care and at the same time soul enriching.C@Rg

CONCLUSION: At the end of the day My friends, whether you cook your own meals or not is a personal choice. However my only request is not undermine Indian food and cooking at home as just any chore. Do not lower the self esteem of your generation next simply because you do not like cooking, or because of your viewpoints which are only yours. Give your children the freedom to choose. Uphold our culture and love for food as much as possible. Remember food is a major connect between parents and children thats sadly missing in todays times. The family instead of a chore needs to make it a fun activity done together and should make it a responsibility to pass it on to generation next. Think of it, wont it be scary if todays teens when become adults will not be able to cook one decent meal ? Do we really want cooking to become extinct? At the end remember the aroma arising from the kitchen itself leaves the family satiated and much in anticipation of the food that is so eagerly awaited, – this is the reason why a child even as an adult at any age yearns for that taste of his”Maa kay haath ka swaad” (Mother’s cooking) as there are innumerable memories woven within and hence builds an unseen magical bond between all for life.

Happy cooking !

Author Rekha Gupta