What is Cooking
Cooking is therapeutic and a stress buster.
Cooking up my favourite dish after years, set me thinking, and I realised that so much has changed over time.
One of my favourite winter sweets is “ gajar halwa,” though easy to buy from a “mithai,” or confectionery shop, we Indians pride ourselves in making these delicacies at home.
The making of this sweet is tedious and time consuming. Once you have grated the carrots you boil it fastidiously, in double or triple the quantity of milk as per choice. The milk on slow flame finally begins to disappear and you add the sugar, ghee or clarified semi fluid butter, cardamoms and continue to stir the mixture until the milk has totally evaporated and the “halwa,” is ready to eat.
While mixing the ingredients on a slow flame, flashes of my mother cooking the same, made me nostalgic and stirred up so many emotions.
As a kid, I ate so much. Not healthy stuff, but endless slices of toast with horrific amounts of butter, in competition with my brothers at breakfast. Bowls of fruit-cream and jelly were devoured and yet I was skinny beyond imagination.
My mom’s halwa had an abundance of ghee, sugar and milk and big quantities were eaten and nobody worried about the ill effects of excesses.
I walked, cycled, ran to our friends homes. There were no cars or drivers ferrying us to and fro, safety on the streets was not a concern. I met my friends in the parks and we were an outdoor generation.
There were no gadgets or expensive toys, if anything we had badminton rackets, shuttles that we preserved till they were threadbare, played “ pitto,”or seven tiles, “Kho Kho,”or tag or cricket with a larger group from the neighbourhood. They would be kind enough to make us fielders, and just being useful and included by the boys was exhilarating.
Parents were not as hyper as they are today. Today’s parents want their children to excel in everything. Children are packed off for various classes, irrespective of their likes or dislikes. Sending them long distances to the best teachers in a specific field, whereby the child spends time in traffic congestion, only tires out the child. In many cases the desire to learn or excel is non existent. It also gives them no time for outdoor play, and leads to so many health hazards. Obesity in children today is a reality.
As a child, my parents did try to develop in me a talent for singing and dancing. Despite the fact that money was not in surplus, I was sent for classes down the road. Once it dawned on them it was pointless, they gave up. They were wise enough to realise the futility of forcing me to learn something I had no interest in or inclination for.
While adding ingredients into my “halwa,” I was very cautious. I now have a slow metabolic rate and time has not been kind to my body. I now have to be very careful and watch my calorie intake, as I seem to even put on weight watching others eat.
Unlike my mother, I was not generous with the quantity of milk and ghee that went in. I substituted sugar with jaggery as I have been constantly told about how white sugar is the new age poison.
The only generosity that I exhibited was towards fresh red seasonal carrots !
So,“halwa,” from an indulgence became more a healthy treat and was devoured with less guilt.
Over my years, the kilos kept adding up, and unfortunately when I did wake up to the realisation it was next to impossible to get back to that size and level of fitness of my younger days.
Today I have to put in a lot of effort, time, consciousness and diligence to stay fit. Losing weight is something I aspire for, but very difficult to achieve. Fitness is the mantra for me.
Lifestyles have changed. Outdoor exercise is minimum and more gyms, fitness centres have come up offering a variety of programs to stay fit.
Consulting dieticians and following their diets are now a fad with young women. Some opt for following a diet plan rather than exercise, as sometimes work hours are too long and women have to juggle many things in a day.
Air pollution has also resulted in lesser outdoor activities, in my city. Sedentary lifestyles, eating wrong food, have made us more prone to health hazards and we are now waking up to the importance of eating and exercising right.
I am happy to see a lot of young girls flock to fitness centres. With the rise of disease and viruses, exercise and building up immunity is now of utmost importance. There are so many options available and be it yoga, dance, pilates, fitness training, choose something that suits your body type and allows you to indulge in excesses of food occasionally.
Cooking up a storm of thoughts, my “halwa”, made me realise so much has changed over the years. Cooking styles and lifestyles are vastly different now, its so important to adapt to the present day needs and not cling on to old habits and tastes.
What may have been good for me yesterday, some of it may seem inappropriate today. I have learnt to adapt, luckily there are so many choices available, that a positive approach and willingness to experiment make me happy and relevant even today.
Life is a gift that needs to be lived well..while my “halwa,”was relished by every member of the family, I hope to keep cooking the “symbolic halwa,” for my family and friends spreading happiness.
