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After my marriage, I went from not knowing how to manage the house and cook to making cakes and saving money. And today, I am a proud home-maker.
After I got married, I was not too confident if I’d be able to have a career and manage my new house too. So, I chose to stay at home for as long as it would take me to be confident enough to handle the house without stressing myself out.
Having grown up in a joint, family, I barely had any knowledge of cooking or even doing household chores including cleaning and making lists. I never really needed to do any of it since there was always someone to help me. At the same time, I wasn’t particularly interested in any of it.
Before marriage, my life was quite easy. I didn’t have the burden of any responsibilities on my shoulders. I worked in my uncle’s office where I earned enough to bear my own wedding expenses.
However, my life changed completely after my marriage! It was just my husband and I in a rented apartment while his parents stayed in the village due to their health issues.
Every time, I had to make some subzi, I would consult YouTube and begin my cooking. Whenever I had any doubts about the recipe, I would call my mom and ask for her advice. I didn’t know how to most of the breakfast dishes. What I did know were the basics – rasam, some curries, a few basic subzis and chapatis. Initially, I would mess everything up until I learnt how to make the perfect tea!
My family is South Indian but I was brought up in Maharashtra and I am married in a South Indian family, settled in Karnataka. So I had to learn to make a few staple South Indian foods.
It began with me being scared of making dosas, because every time I tried an instant dosa recipe, it would stick to the pan. And it took me a few tries to get it right. At the same time I was afraid of making idlis too. But I tried it once and it was perfect in the first attempt! That helped boost my confidence quite a lot.
With that confidence, I started trying my hand at new recipes like dhoklas. My first dhokla experiment wasn’t quite a success. It requires the perfect consistency and measurements to make the perfect soft and fluffy dhokla. Finally, I was able to make it perfectly only after trying to make it over 10 times!
Meanwhile, I didn’t know how to chop cabbage, either and it would take a lot of time for me to chop the vegetables. And neither had I tried more complicated things like puris, puranpolis, thaalipeeth, bhakri, pongal, sabudana khichadi, avial, dahi vada, pani puri or even sheera and pedas. However, now, I have managed to learn the most basic cooking.
Luckily, my husband is a foodie and always encourages me to try new recipes. Even when things don’t go well, he praises me for my attempts and motivates me to do better the next time.
After almost a year of being married, I decided to surprise my foodie husband with something new. So I browsed a number of recipes till I found an easy cake recipe that I could make on a steamer. The cake turned out okay. And looking back I realise, it could have been better had I used a kadhai instead of a steamer. Now, I have learnt baking on a kadhai and I also tried to make pizzas, cupcakes, ice creams and chocolates.
Day by day, I am mastering my cooking skills. But this is just half of it and there are a lot of other milestones I need to achieve. I am proud of my achievements since I overcame all my fears and turned my weakness into my strengths. Before I got married, I was the girl who rarely stepped into the kitchen and now I have pushed myself to a level where I can proudly say, I can cook and serve delicious meals to my guests.
Along with my cooking skills, I also improved on other equally important aspects related to cooking. This includes cleaning the stove, maintaining kitchen hygiene, storing grains and flour in air-tight containers to prevent it from damage. I also keep a check list of grocery items that I need and pick the right kind of vegetables at market while also having learnt how to make fresh butter at home.
Meanwhile, I also practiced book-keeping to keep track of our monthly expenses and managed to cut unnecessary spending! I don’t know how but I also found myself gardening a little. Never in my life had I grown anything but now I have tried my hand at planting methi, muskmelons, tomatoes, lemons, coriander and aloe vera plants. Not all of them survived but some definitely are thriving!
Managing laundry, changing bedsheets and cushion covers regularly, cleaning the bathroom, arranging the closets are all a part of my routine now. And I enjoy it all as a home-maker.
I don’t think being a home-maker is in any manner a lesser job. Doing all these chores, every day with the same enthusiasm, without leaves requires the same amount of strength that any other job does.
Picture credits: YouTube
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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