An interesting news item today says that Smt Usha Ananthasubramaniann, the new CMD of Bharatiya Mahila Bank wants to give "Kitchen-Loan" to women to upgrade their kitchen. Her logic is that "women spend maximum time in kitchen and hence they need money to upgrade the kitchen"...
- firewood stove - 3;
- coal stove - 2 (one to cook food and one to keep drinking water boiling and warm - depending on the heat of the coal)
- a woodden almirah with mesh wire to keep milk, curd, etc in one shelf; one for keeping oil, ghee etc. and one more shelf to keep some long-storage-food items
- a long woodden shelf at a height of 5+ feet - to keep pickles and salt and such stuff
- another long woodden shelf to keep big vessels and things that are used once in a while
- another long woodden shelf to keep daily-use vessels
- on the floor neatly arranged brass pots with drinking water - oldest to newest (water was fetched on daily basis from nearby pond) - not a drop would go waste!
- the portion facing the kitchen which was open to sky, had 3 stones cemented to the floor - one for wet grinding, one for dry powdering, and one for general purpose mixing, pounding, grinding depending on the ingredient
With this kitchen she had catered to nearly 20 adults and 5 children in the large join family. Lunch time used to be the time when all adults and children are made to sit together. Breakfast and dinner are time for each age-group, gender-group to have the food as per their requirement.
This kitchen catered to nearly 50+ adults and 25+ children on special days like Samaradhana, Deepavali etc. The womenfolk in the house used to grind Idli batter in the afternoon, and do other pounding, powdering activities in the morning alongwith cooking.
Of course, they had kitchen and cooking as their major area of activity - which also was used for their learning new things, shloka sessions, bhajan session, sessions with children and grandchildren.
On the whole kitchen was a happy and happening place.
Now let us go to my mother's kitchen.
She had bought a small hand-machine to grind coffee-seeds for putting in the filter to make fresh filter coffee with freshly ground coffee seeds. The brass vessels have become stainless steel vessels - the bronze brass glasses have become glass and stainless steel. The almirahs have become closed shelves (which invited cockroach in good number) and the grinding stones continued, although in smaller sizes. Major change was a kerosene stove for emergency use, a charcoal stove for morning long session cooking, and the firewood stove totally removed from the kitchen. Once in 45 days trouble of waiting for new gas cylinder gave us enough stories to write about.
Soon came a day when kerosene stove remained and charcoal stove got replaced with gas-stove. Number of people eating in the house reduced with no lunch sessions at all except on Sundays. This made dinner time a special family time for all members to sit together. Whenever people got invited for lunch or dinner, special efforts were made to cater to their needs with special home-made items.
Then my generation kitchen time started.
Refrigerator enters the kitchen.
Kerosene stove removed.
Piped gas stove with multiple burners with oven and electrical stove took centre stage.
Microwave oven came handy for roasting papads and for heating food items which were removed from refrigerator.
Shelves, literally became invisible in the kitchen.
Big vessels disappeared as hardly there are people to eat food at home.
Mixers and electric grinders are taking positions in the kitchen near plug-points.
With all these, easy-to-use kitchen and kitchen appliances, the taste of food is not what it was in my grandmother's or mother's kitchen.
We have no friends or family suddenly descending on us to partake food.
We have no great lunch/dinner time as 'self-help' has become norm rather than exception.
I forgot to say, all my friends are going to gym to reduce the fat on their thighs, waist and back! Yes, they are going to Bharatiya Mahila Bank to get that "kitchen-loan" so that they can spend more "quality" time in the gym.
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