Humble Beginnings

#USA

Post#5

Humble Beginnings:

Our sansar (life together)started on very humble premises in every way.

 It was a rather run down apartment with  one bedroom and a conspicuous green carpet that the previous tenant had left behind. 

I had no utensils or cookware except for a misalnaacha dabba ( spice box) I had since my hostel days. A friend’s wife took me to a local department store to get the basics. A set of 4 plates, bowls , mugs. Some spoons and forks . And a couple of pots and pans. Empty yogurt containers were saved to store dal, rice, sugar and spices. Later after Baba went back to India and gave the update he and my MIL determined what pots I would need and sent it with her. Over the years they gave so much that I can probably host all of you at once 😉

 A sofa, a dinnete table with 4 chairs ,small TV and phone stands and a bed was all the furniture we needed and got. Most of it we assembled ourselves. 

The electric stove in the apartment was old , worn down, took time to heat and was not helpful for making rotis. A few months later when it broke down and the management replaced it with a new one it was enough to get me excited 😀

Having left home after 10th grade to study in Mumbai and prior to that my parents having help with cooks at home I had zero experience of cooking. But enthusiasm was abounding to have people over for food 😀. My first invitation to 2-3 of Abhay’s friends’ families  turned out to be quite memorable. 😉

I decided to make chhole. I washed them. No soaking. Put them in a pot with water to boil. Added salt. 1 hour passed. They were hard. 2 hours, still hard. 5 hours. Nope. 8 hours. Still quite uncooked inside. By this time the guests arrived one after another . Hurriedly I added the chhole to the gravy I had kept ready . I served them my half cooked chhole, with rotis made on the old electric burner, raita and pulav! The invited ladies were Patlanis ! Excellent cooks by all standards. They got a good taste of how much of a competition I was 😉

The very next day we made a trip to Devon street Patel Brothers to get a small pressure cooker and a microwave !

I’ve come a long way with cooking since that episode !! 

In the context of humble beginnings, today’s saree is my humblest of all purchases ever. I had chanced upon this handloom beauty at the Khadi Bhandar store somewhere at Matunga or Mahim and instantly fallen in love with its pastel yellow body and denim blue borders with woven design. There is a fine herringbone pattern and small temple design in white with adjoining green bands in the border. Not sure of the origins of this weave but I have a feeling it maybe from Vidarbha. Unbelievable as it may seem today I paid all of rupees 35 ( yes thirty five) for this one. It has stayed nice even to this day despite multiple uses and washings. Mild starch makes it look really elegant.

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