The Last Appam

Cheena chatti gasped in surprise when the cold appam batter was poured into it, the batter was then slowly cooked to perfection till its edges were turned golden brown. Amma carefully separated the appam from chatti and continued to make the next ones. Watching all these acts were me and a bowl of piping hot vegetable stew. The aroma of coconut milk and sight of carrots, beans and potato of the stew compelled my bowels to yell for more. Amma was well aware of my needs and made a batch of appams. Achan and Aniyan emerged from their respective corners in the house, like snakes come out of their holes during first rain. They too must have been invited by the hot appams and stew. Once the hungry souls were satisfied, Amma made couple more appams for herself and left the last appam in the chatti. I knew why she does that, while she finishes the appams on her plate, she will call out and ask me to get the last appam resting at the chatti. This way she ensured that she too get to eat a piping hot appam!

Fast forwarding to today’s world where I am a working woman and living with my husband. My nights are filled with planning for next day and mornings are spend executing them meticulously, so that the machine called home can run without fail.  Once home is up and running, I will run towards office were a set of instructions are to be followed and some decisions need to be made. One of the many juggling activities managed during this ride is preparing breakfast. I had tried oats, corn flakes, milk and fruits, bread and omelet and almost all other quick breakfast options. However, realized that the traditional breakfast options are the ones which are healthy and filling and keeps us fuelled for the entire day. While my husband is served piping hot food from tawa / chatti directly, I eat the ‘Last’ piece and enjoy the moment.

Dear readers, now you must be thinking what kind of men we have at the family and may be sympathizing with me and Amma? Halt there… look at each and every family around, don’t we see that woman in the family is the one who is at the kitchen planning, preparing and feeding food for the entire family? While the world has progressed so far and Men and Women share most kinds of work and we have celebrity men chefs and cookery show male anchors, we do not see Men in their kitchen actively working for his family. It is not that men don’t do any work related to kitchen, they bring groceries, praise women for their cooking skills, sometimes clean the dishes, rarely cut the vegetables, but they have never come forward and has taken ownership to manage the entire kitchen activities. Is it our social set up or historically men used to go out for hunting and women stayed back and reared kids and cooked food?  If that is the case then wake up, today women go out for work just like men and handle all the stress out there , driving a vehicle, purchasing grocery, managing money are all done by her. Still, why men have to depend on women for home food?

I am dreaming of a day when men would throw away all their inhibitions and take up kitchen tasks, and women in the family wait at the dining table for a hot appam to be served with love. Kids will run behind dads on festive days and ask for their favorite sweets to be made. Our future generations would remember of days when their dad and mom both shared cooking and feeding the family. Well, technically the last appam would always remain, but the good thing would be it will not be always for Amma.

Translation:

Cheena Chatti:  Wok / Kadai.

Amma: Mother.

Achan: Father.

Aniyan: Younger Brother.

Tawa: Pan.

Googling Anxiety

Disclaimer: I have no special interest towards any particular search engines. However, you will find me mentioning the name Google here. I am still googling to find out the cause.

She twisted and rolled a pen and occasionally thumped it onto the table. Her eyes were fixed onto mine and all ears for me. Then, I muttered, “Preeclampsia” (A serious condition in pregnancy characterized by high blood pressure and fluid retention.). A smile broke into her lips, but she maintained eye contact. There was a deep sigh of relief from my husband who was seated next to me. It seemed like they were trying to prove something and just won. Tension in the room was relieved and he said, “Doctor, as soon as any symptom appears she googles and diagnosis it herself!” She then took my blood pressure and asked to do a routine urine analysis to rule out pre eclampsia!  My husband laughed at me and said “She wants you to do this, so that you can have peace of mind!” This time doctor broke her silence and took that fated pen again and said, “No, I really want to rule it out However, relax and take complete rest. No laptop or TV for you for next 24 hours.”

Being an IT professional and staying away from hometown and from the advices of mother and warnings from mother in –law, what is so abnormal about googling and keeping up to-date about one’s pregnancy? Though pregnancy is a totally normal phenomenon which can make any normal individual insane with numerous symptoms, advices from every nook and corner, and a puffed up face. I decided to adopt Google as my God Mother as soon as I was planning to become a mother. My own mother and other women folks in the family were out of picture and were considered only for pampering me.  I was enthralled at the sight of thousands of sites dedicated for baby making, pregnancy detection kit, etc.  A close friend of mine had ordered a dozen of these kits and by the time she got pregnant, she could actually write a paper on the efficiency of various brands in detecting early pregnancy! Planning and preparing is important, but it also makes you weaker to face the unexpected. After reading various online forums and sites I had a clear picture of symptoms related to pregnancy, usage of detection kit, conception chances, routine tests, etc. Whenever my lack of experience confused me, my doctor who is an extremely patient and quick witted lady would first prompt me to utter the medical terms and then explains it to me.

My mother’s generation hardly had any such funky tools to look for information. She relied on doctors or health magazines or experienced relatives. It was also a networking activity which resulted in the establishment of support groups.  Women of that era relied on doctors and did not have any pre-judgment about symptoms. On the contrary, availability of millions of resources and advancement in technology is now capable of viewing any normal situation abnormally.  Recently a health camp was conducted at my firm and practitioners were sent to a dietician. Needless to say some of my colleagues instantly googled to validate what he had to say and bombarded him with questions. The other day, a set of inquisitive people were discussing the difference between purple, violet, lilac, and lavender. This is not because they are jobless, but this is the trend!

Car’s engine got started and a song started playing ,
‘♫ Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours, to see ♫’. We left the clinic. I realized that being inquisitive is good, but it shouldn’t lead to anxiety and stress. We have knowledge at our finger tips and it doesn’t mean that we should be knowledgeable about everything. Be it pregnancy or on anything in this universe, realization on where to stop is important. I started imagining the endless possibilities of doubts I will have till delivery and beyond and the millions of search results … Thump!  My baby kicked, maybe she wants to tell that, we should simply live the moment!