Doing My Bit

Since my wife is a working women, meaning she has a 9 to 5 job like me, and in addition has to do most of the household work, I try to do my bit as far as I can in doing the household work to help her. Thankfully her workplace is at a walking distance of 4 minutes 45 seconds from our home. Hence she gets ample time to finsih off the household chores. While I have to travel everday about 4 hours from home to my place of work, so I get less time. But I try, honestly, to do as much I can to help her in running our home.

A thing which I have been doing quite reguarly, in fact once very week, for past one and half year, is something for which I feel little proud of as a husband.

My aunt had expired about one and half years ago and I had to go with my uncle to Nasik to carry out the 10th and 11th day rituals at Nasik. We had stayed at Advani Dharmsaala, as it was very near the river Godavari, where the ritual were to be performed. We had lunch at a outside hotel, but for dinner I told my uncle to try out the dinner made by the dharamsala cooks. So we told cooks to prepare the dinner for two of us. I was curious to know what they will be cooking for the dinner and was told it will be dal chawwal and sabzi of lauki (bottle gourd). Well, like many people I had general dislike for lauki and I was almost regretting our decision. Anyway, the dinner time arrived and we were served dal chawwal and sabzi of lauki. Unwillingly I tried a little of lauki and surprisingly it was very very tasty. I was hooked to its taste and asked for three more helping of lauki. It was that good. This lauki seems to be prepared differently. After finishing dinner, I went straight to the kitchen and shook the hands of the cook who had made the sabzi of lauki. The cook turned out to be a Grawahli Brahamin and was from Nainital. Incidently, I had visited Nainital with my family in the month of May that year. So we got chatting about Nainital. In the end of our conversation I asked him the recepie of sabzzi of lauki. I made him to repeat it twice so that I don't forget any detail.

It is the sabzi of lauki which I have been preparing every week for my family. Right from buying the vegetable, cutting the vegetable to till it is perfectly cooked. Here is the recepie if you are curious/interested or don't believe me. Skin lauki, cut it into small pieces, cut two tomatoes in small peices as also one green chili.Put on the gas burner a kadhai in which you put a spoon of cooking oil, let the oil simmer a bit, then put a small spoon of red chili powder and put into immediately pieces of tomatoes and green chilies, then put two spoons of daniya powder, salt, some halidi powder and stir the mixure for two minutes. Then add the pieces of lauki and again stir it for few minutes. And then cover it with a steel plate so that the entire mixures is covered properly, put the gas burner at the slowest and let it cook for about ten minutes. Now remove the steel plate and put the gas burner to normal burning, add some hara daniya over it, and again stir it for few minutes. The sabzi of lauki is now ready to eat. One can eat it with chapatis. We normally eat it with mixtures of three dals (pulses) which is called Ti-Dali Dal.

Well, this is the bit which I do every week, mostly on Tuesday or Wednesday. In Sindhi lauki is called kadoo. I had become quite an expert in making the sabzi of kadoo. My wife and children seems to like it. And it makes me happy.

By the way, it is my 200th post.