I walk to work daily. It’s a blessing in
Bombay to have a place a few kilometres away from office. Walking on traffic
congested, fungi-infested lanes is way better than commuting in Mumbai rains or
the local trains.
What I do with all the time, money and
energy I save by going on foot is simple: I cook, I read and I sleep well. Very
plain and mundane it may sound, but this is exactly what I cherish- having a
peace of mind, that often gets lost when you work in corporate world.
I cook two-three meals a day, and have
realized that more often than not, cooking is therapeutic in nature. The
colours each food item has during different stages of cooking- from raw to
semi-cooked to ready-to-eat- are many more than in a rainbow. The sounds like
splattering of oil, the whistling of pressure cooker or sparkling of tea are
the kinds of cacophony I can live with. The fragrance of piping hot food
stimulate the taste buds, or so I read in a primary school textbook years ago.
There are few things that affect all my senses in this way. What started as just a way to fill my stomach
without emptying my pocket on restaurants/delivery food, is now a chore I look
forward to. From the disappointment of
making uncooked/burnt/not-a-circle-shape rotis to the excitement of baking
banana soufflé, I take a journey everyday through the valleys and mountains of
emotions.
I read as often as I can. What stops me
most of the times is binge-watching videos. Guilty. What I am reading these
days seems to be interesting. The first 15 pages were loaded with Spanish and
French words and phrases and references to Tainos , fuku, de Leon, JFK etc.
This led to an extensive use of Google Translate and Google Search, where each
search led to a new search. As an example, googling about de Leon led me to
searching about a former Roman empire of the Iberian Peninsula. This introduced
me to Basque- a language indigenous to regions adjacent to Spain and France
(that kind of explains Spanish and French words and phrases being used in this
novel). A search about Iberian Peninsula led me to check out the modern day
Europe’s map, which reminded me of Prof SSB who taught us International
Business Strategy. That gem of a man- he gave us assignments on India’s trade
relations with countries like Paraguay and Uruguay, which I would never think
about otherwise. It is partly because of his way of teaching, that
now when I see my friend Instagramming about her vacation in Nuwara Eliya, I know that Nuwara Eliya means “city on the plain”- a city in the
hill country of the Central Province, Sri Lanka.
And with all this feast of food and
knowledge, I happily fall asleep every night, always thinking of what to cook
the next day and which new search thread might unravel tomorrow J
