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Gizmo collectors!

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, Mar 1, 2007.

  1. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Cheeniya Sir,

    Like you, I am also not averse to gadgets in the kitchen as long as they are replacing hard work in the kitchen such as grinding and mixing. I am not a big believer of fancy gadgets that are designed to cut vegetables in peculiar designs that brings back our memories of geometry that we had learned in the school. I like traditional cutting of vegetables after buying them fresh from the market. I don't know about India but in the US most vegetables are now available in cut format and those vegetables that loses its freshness are frozen. Despite all mumbling I hear from my wife, I insist on vegetables being cut in the kitchen. As a consolation, I offer to help her whenever possible in the kitchen purely for cutting the vegetables.

    A husband in the kitchen helping the wife in her daily chores however small the job is, make the wife happy more than fancy gadgets. I make her happy by helping her in the kitchen whenever I can and she makes me happy by buying fresh vegetables.

    But I have to admit that she bought a food processor recently and I was questioning the value of that product. Once she started using it, I figured out the importance. Can you believe that it mixes wheat flour and water so nicely to make nice and soft chappaties? I kept my mouth open watching how that food processor softly mixed it. I was doubly happy when I could have soft chappaties with hot curry. That taught me a lesson to stay within my boundaries and let her make all decisions relating to kitchen.

    Viswa
     
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  2. shyamala1234

    shyamala1234 Platinum IL'ite

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    Dear Sri,

    From where you have taken the topic from modern gadgets to a delicate and touching aspect of human relationships! I thought it is all about new toys(gizmos) which come every week in the market.

    Yes, feeling wanted is one of the strong human feelings....however old the person may be. Sometime back I read a short story in Telugu...guess it is relevant here. One old mother comes form village and stays with her son, DIL and two kids, as the son and DIL feel that it is time for her to relax and take rest, she toiled her whole life. She is given all the comforts of life which were not available in the village, including AC in her room. They don't allow her to do anything. The couple plan a trip for some sightseeing place along with their friends even before she came. They wanted to keep the two kids in another friend's house for one week during their absence. As MIL is with them they want to cancel the tickets thinking that she may not be stay alone. She offers to stay there itself, wants the kids also to stay with her and assures that she can take care of them and sends son and DIL on their trip. When they come back...they find that MIL is bubbling with joy and enthusiasm, had a great time with kids and made all delicious things for them. A new glow was their on her face. She tells them she was depressed because she felt unwanted. Now she is happy doing things at home.Felt like a member of a family and not like a guest (it is difficult to stay as a guest for long time, one has to put on a mask for most of the time). Son and DIL realize and lived happily ever after.

    Syamala
     
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  3. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Viswa
    You and your wife sound like the modern Valluvar and Vasuki. I too help my wife a lot in the kitchen by tasting what she cooks and offering my critical comments. During my tenure in Coonoor in the mid 70's, I had a couple of tea tasters as my friends. Their job is to taste the tea produced and grade them qualitatively. They take a sip of tea, roll it in their mouth and spit it out. If we do it in a friend's house, we'll be shown the door but the tea tasters are held in high esteem and paid a fat salary too. I am told that wine tasting in the French vineyards is a very lucrative job.

    These cut vegetables are becoming popular in Chennai too. Some shops mix the cut vegetables for 'Avial' and 'Koottu'! Peeled onions are in great demand because it saves you the bother of having to shed your tears while peeling. One lady told me once that her tears were too precious to waste on onions. She said that every tear that she shed made her richer by a silk saree or a diamond stud!
    Sri
     
  4. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Syamala
    This is precisely the point I have tried to make in my thread on Gizmo collectors. My grand mother and mother used to wash their clothes themselves almost till their dying day.They hated troubling others for any kind of assistance. As compared to them, the younger generation won't even fetch their glass of water and want someone to get it for them.

    Even in the old age homes that I visit periodically, the inmates render a lot of help to the paid servants by sharing their work. My mum would always say that a person should live only as long as he can take care of his requirements.
    Sri
     
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  5. kaniths

    kaniths IL Hall of Fame

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    Me again! :)

    Hope you don't mind another feedback from me! I promise I ll be relevant this time... I have skipped all the previous comments, here am straight after reading your post! lol! :p

    I somehow stumbled upon this post & reading the first few lines I thought this is going to be "just another old generation" guy rejecting technology kinda post! :bonk Lucky that I dint quit or would have missed "just another" wonderful snippet from you, "older generation" indeed yet very wise! :)

    Very touching writeup... Love this perspective... I wonder if this is how my 'Paatis' would have felt... Today its my father helping my mother cut veggies but he uses the slicer dicer... Understandable given their age factor But irony when I felt too lazy to work around such slicer dicers that I bought an electronic chopper, Now all I have to do is just push a button!!! No Sentiments Attached...! :oops:

    Lovely snippet, Thanks for sharing!
     
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  6. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Welcome again, kaniths!
    You can't really call this 'another' feedback. This is yet another Ramble of mine that you happened to read and comment upon. And I most heartily welcome every one of your FBs! Thank you for your appreciative words.

    I wrote this after observing the reactions of my previous generation. Any act on our part that conveyed a suggestion that they had lost their usefulness to the family, they would just crumble in grief. It made them happy if you kept giving them some small errands that they were capable of performing without difficulty. It may not be much of a job but if it gives them so much joy and a feeling of self esteem, we are duty bound to keep them engaged.
    Sri
     
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  7. kaniths

    kaniths IL Hall of Fame

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    Nice that you at least had / have a generation before yours to observe & understand... Look at our generation... We have replaced gadgets in place of human emotions & family relations, thanks to nuclear families! doh1
     
  8. Oriana

    Oriana New IL'ite

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    Dear Cheeniya,


    I thought such octogens and nanogens who are self-assured and fierce could only be captured in reel-life e.g., Jessica Trundy who essayed the role of Mrs Daisy Werthan in the award-winning movie "Driving Miss Daisy". Wow! What a portrayal of senescence of a Jewish school teacher. When such characters are spotted in real-life one is in disbelief not at the spry physicality but mental constituency to stay agile and immersed by inducing territorial chores which may also include devoted chopping of vegetables.

    I can understand the erect bristles of your mother if you had ventured or even proposed such divestiture. The title was very misleading! I was about to skip reading and I'm glad no matter how blunt my intuition is , my will is equally weak to skip an article of yours.
     
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  9. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Oriana
    You have spoken about Jessica Tandy. What about Morgan Freeman? I can never get the picture of Morgan reminiscing his relationship with Tandy in the retirement home in the concluding scene out of my mind. Jessica's portrayal of Daisy is beyond compare and her academy award for that portrayal was an absolutely perfect decision by the panellists. How Daisy carries her 90+ years of age with such grace and compassion! It is a must see for all ageing hawks!

    When my mum walked into her sunset at 96, it was after a life that was lived strictly in accordance with her self imposed code of conduct. I knew that she would hate to stretch her life a day beyond her physical and mental capability of being able to live that perfect life which she had carved out for herself.
    Sri
     
  10. Oriana

    Oriana New IL'ite

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    Few bonds which start off on a rough road lead to a prodigious journey.
    Daisy and Hoke form such uplifting companionship. Another pair that springs to my mind is Mrs Laura Henderson and Vivian Van Damm of Windmill Theatre. Such diametrically complementing personalities! I watched "Mrs Henderson presents" sometime last year on one of those lounging weekends and was totally smitten with the spunk and feverish vivacity of a 70-year old widow. One day I grow old, that is the women I want to be!


    I happened to notice just now on the home page of this thread that this is your first post in IL. Many people embark on "what I want to write" and compromise with "what others want to read" over a period of time. Your consistently striking autonomous writing should jerk Chetan Bhagat. Sigh! I flipped his last book "Half a Girlfriend" few weeks back and was disheartened to see one of the promising writers of urban India slump into schlock writing, perhaps, to cinch bollywood producers.


    I'm amazed at 8 years of your unadulterated writing to suit or comply with flighty audience. It not only takes discipline and conviction but statuesque confidence to carry on with what you have been doing here with your uncompromising style and inextinguishable galore of topics.
     

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