Life's gentle, yet useful lessons

A common saying is: life is a tough teacher who conducts the exams first and then gives the 'lessons' enabling them to permanently sink in.

Two years back, i'd have agreed with that 100 percent.

Two years later, i know that life is an adaptable and a supremely mouldable teacher.

What the heck am I yakking about?

Well, in my earlier thread, I'd mentioned that I was a cooking challenged person who would not know even if a bag of toor dal hit me in my face.

The background situation was simple: i had eaten some crap somewhere and was at my parents' home laid sick with hepatitis. Obviously, my folks were concerned. My grandma's only mantra was if only I'd gotten married earlier. Though sick and down, I knew what her underlying thought was, what my gut was saying and couldn't say/refute. Many years back, a 'wellwisher' of mine had asked me when I was planning to get married. I asked him the reason. With a look akin to my having asked him for his kidney gratis, he replied only then so that I could taste good food. Seething inside at the lack of logic in his answer, i wanted to give him a tongue lashing, yet i couldn't do so since i didn't have the answer: how indeed i'd take care of myself. I ranted at my mom that if i wanted cooked food i'd marry a cook. My mother however let me know that those were her supreme fears. I had stayed outside the home for close to 17 years and had never bothered to pay attention to these things.

Then life's teacher paid me a visit. When the time to leave home creeped closer, my gran and dad were worried. I had relatives but couldn't ask them for help. When the discussion about fixing a cook was going on, my mom, sitting like a buddha, dropped the bombshell that I had to learn cooking. In 15 days. And will you believe it, my accquaintance with the various kinds of daal started then. To not get confused, i prepared a scrapbook with the dals pasted and their names. That bad I was.

When I returned, life sent in another teacher. Dad's friend. He is an expert cook and used to give me 'gyan' only when i asked him. That way, I was not pressured by external factors. Only my stomach growled and asked me to pull my socks up. Shortcuts to making a healthy soup, for instance. This would be followed by why one needed to make one's own tomato soup and not rely on processed stuff. Besides the recipes, I got some insight into why this was healthy and an economical option.

Then when I really needed to have good sambar, Chitvish popped in. Another teacher.

I have lived happily ever after.

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Learning how to cook has given me a strong argument against the usual crap peddled by well-wishers to get married. Now I know that when the need to marry arises, I'd not spend time looking for a maid/housekeeeper/cook, but rather a soulmate. The need and the logical (tradition is NOT a correct answer, FYI) answer to why get hitched haven't come yet.

---o

I'd heard about this maid argument in the movie Hyderabad blues. When the hero assumes that after marriage, the heroine would relocate to USA, she loses her cool and asks him if he were looking for a wife or a maid. Even at that time when i couldn't identify a pressure cooker, I thought that was an apt dialogue and docketed it for the future.

 

No choice but to make a scrap book, though, only a couple of pages for daals. So many daals to know. Just one brain to store all this info. One track which was continuously running in my mind, listening to mom was if the pressure cooker would burst on my face. Gave me many a sleepless night.

 

thanks crazywriter. I'll definitely try to write something readable. Btw, i think it applies to women as well. They needn't and ought not to get hitched for the sake of tradition etc. A valid reason is extremely necessary.