Cooking

A 10X15 sq.ft room.
Queer, mixed smell lingering all over the place. Or lets say locked up in that confined volume. Soothing aroma of the incense lit during the recently performed pooja.
Absolutely delicious smell of the food cooked for prashad.
I might not ever have eaten so much. Yeah, I know, not even by my usual eating standards.
Baigan ki sabzi, achar, dal, papad, chawal and countless rotis.
Oh I felt so good, so full, so satisfied.
This is where our maid's sister stays. Being the only breadwinner of the family, she can't afford a bigger house.Yeah they stay in a 150 sqft room. Four of them.
But man, she cooks so well!
She calls us for dinner sometimes.
And the love,affection and caring with which is serves is truly touching.
I kept thinking of those well-to-do,rich families calling us for dinner just as a formality. Serving food using beautiful glass crockery, silver ladles and spoons. Dry-fruit studded puddings and custards and a cold heart. The food doesn't really taste good.

I came back home.
My mom all happy that someone finally could make me eat in these hols.
Its really ironic, I don't eat much at home and keep complaining about the hostel food back there in college. May be because of the absolutely lazy, butt-glued-to-the-computer-chair schedule in these holidays.

Cooking is an art. Its not just the basic ingredients or the generous use spices or oodles of oil used in Indian recipes that make dishes tasty.(who doesnt like oily food?) It is the warm hand making it, that makes wonders. It is interesting how my grandma never seems to know how many grams, how many cups, how many "tea spoons", how many "table spoons"(well, why do you need so many spoons, I wonder)of ingredients she uses. Nor does she know about any fancy measuring scales. But how she still manages to put in everything in exact quantities puzzles me. Her simple dishes taste so out-of-the-world!

I have never fascinated cooking till now. But now if you come to think of it, don't I just crave good food all the time? Then why have I been neglecting cooking so far? Because it is a bit messy? Messier than playing football in rains? Aah, I bet not. Because it is time consuming? Oh, more time consuming than finding the contact of an entrepreneur off the net,the thing all CEL members have to do sometime or the other.. No. Is it because cooking is a risky business? More risky than staying in a campus where AVK rules? Oh, certainly not. If I can bear all those things, cooking should be fun, I am guessing.

I think I am going to learn cooking.

Just feel like ending this on a very random statement.
"Guys who can cook are hot!" ;)