“How was the pizza, beta?” I
asked my daughter, to which she threw a counter question, licking her finger,”
as delicious as ever mamma! Can it ever happen that you cook something and it
is not great?” Her statement brought a
grin on my face, as I was driven down in my memory lane to remember the baigan ki sabzi that turned into a cooking disaster.
The incidence dates back to the time when I had joined Engineering College
and as my father was posted at other city, I used to stay at my uncle’s home
accompanied by my brother, who was two years senior to me in the same college.
Though I used to help my chachiji
in cooking and
other household chores, like any other studious girl, I was not very expert at
cooking which was proved when my chachiji
went
to her parental village nearby and could not return on the same day.
As eating in restaurants was not common those
days and home delivery was not even heard of, this left the responsibility of
cooking dinner for the family on myself with the assistance of my cousin sister
Mona, who was younger and of course more naïve than me. All together we were four, including my
cousin brother elder to me. We decided to cook a basic meal of chapatis
and baigan ki sabzi,
as
our brothers could not dare to ask anything more from us. While Mona was kneading the dough for chapatis, I attempted to
cook Baigan
ki sabzi. After placing the vegetable on high flame, I took a stroll out of the
kitchen, to get rid off the heat of the kitchen. Soon, the smell of burning
brinjal filled the whole house and I came running to the kitchen, only to find
out that by that time, Mona had put a glass of water in the vegetable to save it
from burning. While we cooked reasonably round and thin chapatis, I took a glance
at my attempt on vegetable. The outcome was some soft pieces of brinjal
floating in yellow colored water, which in no way could be called ” baigan ki sabzi”. Exhausted with
the efforts of one hour of continuous cooking, we decided to serve our brothers
whatever was cooked. Like any other traditional Indian household, our brothers
sat to eat while we sisters were making chapattis.
Putting the first bite in
mouth, both of them screamed, “What kind of vegetable is this?” I counterattacked,” How bad of you, we have
prepared this meal with so much love and affection, and you are criticizing it.
Moreover, you should be thankful to us that you have got something to eat,
despite chachiji
not
being there.” At that very point of time, as a God sent opportunity an
unexpected guest in the form of a distant relative called Mamaji
dropped
in and we were quick enough to serve the food for him also in a plate. Now, Mamaji was quiet a
gentleman and though he politely declined second serve, he did justice to
whatever was served in first course. Our brothers could also not raise their
voice in the presence of Mamaji and finished
their dinner quietly.
After this, the two of us i.e. Mona, and myself sat for
the dinner, criticizing our brothers for their callous attitude and
unsympathetic comments, which we received after the departure of Mamaji. The first bite
in our mouth had an amazingly similar effect on both of us. With great
difficulty, we both swallowed the first bite and looked at each other
surreptitiously. “Really difficult to swallow”, I said to which there was no
question of her disagreeing. We finished
the chapatis
with
pickle, leaving the rest of the vegetable untouched. Though we felt sympathetic
for our brothers, there was no question of admitting our fault to them. So to conceal all the evidence of our cooking disaster, after finishing our food, we took the leftover vegetable outside backyard, where a stray dog was waiting
for his daily dose of leftover dinner. We threw the vegetable, the dog sniffed
it, tasted it and to our surprise, making a sound mixed of coughing and
vomiting ran away, probably swearing never to come again. The behavior of dog
confirmed that our brothers were far better than him. We forgave them in our
hearts and promised to each other to never disclose this secret to anyone.
Many years have passed since then with the
guidance from my mother and sisters, recipe books and a lot of experiments, I
have earned enough experience to cook fairly good food that earn me lot of
accolades from my husband, in-laws, kids and guests. But the memories of that baigan ki sabzi
still
bring smile at my face, whenever I get an appreciation from anyone.
As I said above, eating out and home delivery was not even heard of, but I am sure if there would have been an app like TinyOwl, the story would have been different. with so many options of restaurant and choice of dishes available on TinyOwl,we could have managed to to save our brothers the agony of eating the horrible sabzi by ordering some exotic dishes!
With this app, you can enjoy exciting treats by simply chosing your meals with effortless swipes. The user rating feature helps you choose the best restaurant and delivery time helps you decide according to your requirement. Using TinyOwl is simple, you can download it on your Android phone or iPhone and enjoy delicious food without any hassles!
