Bhindi Gobhi the husband and me !! (priority wise)

Being a working wife is a very very very difficult choice i have made in life. On one hand i need to make sure that my office mails dont go unanswered and on the other hand i need to ensure the husbands lunch does not look dull. There are days when i am in the middle of a meeting and on the sides of my organizer i scribble"call plumber to look at the leaking tap", there have been instances when i am talking to his mother and make a mental reminder,not to call her during office hours since the conversation usually lasts for an hour..yes 45 minutes at the least..yes yes , with his mom.

Those of you wondering what i talk for an hour can email me, and i shall provide free consultation.

Once i reach home, i need to make some more important decisions, like should i scrub my face now, or should i do it before i sleep off. Choosing the latter , i get into the kitchen, and start doing what i love doing, cooking.

When i was a kid, vegetables looked threats to me, they were reminders of my puny, 3 feet tall existence and my mothers 5 feet 8 inches existence. Vegetables reminded me of the balcony, where i was usually asked to sit for half an hour if i dint eat vegetables. A s child i was a fussy eater, so sometimes when my father opened the magazine kept under the coffee table, a piece of chappati would fall out. There were instances where my mother would be puzzeled on seeing red ants marching towards the Tulsi plant, since thats where i would throw my Horlicks infused milk. I had also tried flushing a katori(bowl) of dal, but unfortunately the katori crash landed in the commode and the plumber had to be called. I sometimes feel i had a tormented childhood because of vegetables, horlicks and milk.

Today at 27, things look a little brighter, i am faced with a new challenge from my 6 foot tall fridge. You see, apart from all the ice cubes it supplies for the jack daniels, apart from the stock of chicken nuggets it freezes to feed us on Friday evenings, it has a big vegetable box. Every saturday morning , when G and i go to the nearby Reliance Fresh, i make a mental reminder of things we need to buy. There was a time when i used to write things on a post-it, which G would stick on the trolley, and in between picking up, Brittania Crackers and corriander, he would drop the post-it. So the plan dint work and we decided on mental reminders.

As we enter Reliance fresh , i head to the section of vegetables, praying to God, "please give me more options apart from gobhi and bhindi( cauliflower and Okra) " and as fate would have it, there lying in front of me, in bright red boxes, drizzeled with water i see a whole lot of happiness. I see cabbage, i see capsicum, carrots, turnip,bottle gourd,brinjal ohhh ...wow!! finally i will make "paanch meshalir torkari" ( five vegetables mixed with spices, super popular in bengali households)

With absolute eternal acknowledgement, i pick up one shiny,round gorgeous Brinjal "Baby why are you taking begun(brinjal in bengali) ?" the man asks. I turn around and smile and expalin my thoughts on paanchmeshalir torakri, to which i hear "ohhh nooo baby, i dont like bottle gourd"

As a good loving wife, i sacrifice my thoughts and march to pick up some French Beans, "Baby these are old, lets get some other vegetables" trying my best to hold back my tears i turn around and see whats staring into my face"gobhi and bhindi"

"ahhh these look good" and a KG each are taken.

Moving ahead, i cheer myself up and say, this time i will experiment with some new style of cooking. I will buy some paneer and probably Tuesday night could be mattar paneer. So smiling at teh though of the green round peas, i open the freezer and pull out a pack of "Safal Frozen Peas"

"ayii baby i dont like frozen peas, take the fresh ones"

With the look of a woman, who has been asked to rub some mustard oil on her hands, instead of the new Elizabeth Arden lotion, i pick up half a kilo of fresh peas. Mental reminder" give Bai an old kurti and ask her to peel the peas for me and keep on Tuesday morning"

Finally when we reach the billing section , we have a man who is very happy with his Brittania crackers, the crate of red Bull, the king prawns and the box of Mentos. While i sulk at the trolley filled with so many things that looked threatening to me, once again a deja vu of childhood..though i love the bunch of Broccoli smiling at me, i look back at the shiny tomatoes, i nearly kiss the carrots and capsicum, i will miss the others i left behind.

And i knew , tonight again i will dream of wearing a huge gown,making some peas soup, with 7 children screaming on the floor and G driving a tractor in the backyard. And all the while the cauliflower and Bhindi are watching the new movie sitting on the Brown leather couch !