BANGALORE: There’s nothing worse than finding out that you are, after all, turning into your parents. And there is nothing better than a stint of living absolutely alone to drive home this wretched fact.
Having to deal with kitchens and household chores is a good way of finding your roots. Not only will you confront the upsetting fact that you are turning into your mother, but also discover within yourself traces of your grandmother and any aunties you may lived with long enough to have absorbed their habits.
I, for instance, have realised that I am incredibly impatient in the kitchen.
I don’t mind the actual work but I cannot stand about waiting for things to get done. I chop tomatoes while waiting for the rice to boil. I beat eggs between stirring the onions. If I must wait, then I fill and refill and empty out sugar bowls. And if I cannot find a second and third task to keep me occupied inside the kitchen, I walk off to find other tasks in other rooms, often forgetting all about the pot I’ve left simmering on the fire. This is a trait I’ve inherited from my mother.
I grew up watching a pan of milk boil over every other day since my mother did not have the patience to stand around watching milk come to a boil. As a child, I was often deputed to watch the milk in her stead. I was not impatient like her but was given to incurable daydreaming; the result was that the milk would boil over right under my nose. I no longer daydream at the stove, but now, I no longer have the patience to stand around watching the stove either.
I have also developed the habit of rinsing the kitchen napkins frequently, then wringing them out and leaving them to dry on the counter. This is something I inherited from my grandmother.
And just like her, I too do not like leaving every little task to hired domestic helpers. She never let them do all the housework, and I too am deeply uncomfortable with having maids do everything from cooking to cleaning to laundry to ironing and making beds.
Like my mother and grandmother and all my aunts, I have inherited the quality of not caring much about what I eat, and when. But we have a preference for a fixed breakfast menu.
We don’t like too much variety early in the morning. I’ve also picked up the family habit of fretting about food constantly, if we have a guest over.
Like my mother, I come alive only after those first two cups of tea in the morning. But from my aunts, I learnt to sacrifice my need for silence and laziness in the morning, whenever there is another person in the house.
Some of my odd habits, of course, are my own. For instance, I like to lie down after breakfast and stare at the ceiling. Or perhaps, I got it off some great-grandmother on the paternal side.
By Billo Rani Life and times of a single writer in Delhi bngexpresso@epmltd.com