Mental and Not Physical Drudgery

Do you know how the dosa batter industry got a head start? Well, a lady in Chennai got this idea because she always outsourced her batter, finding the job of removing the batter and cleaning up after that too irksome. Well we don't even have the patience to feed the raw ingredients into the grinder container and switch the grinder on.And our grandmothers did  the  grinding manually. Why, my own mother would sit down and grind idli/ dosa batter in the stone grinder, rotating the stone with her left hand while feeding and circulating the dough with her right hand into the hole. I remember being fascinated as a kid by the huge stone grinder in grandmother's house and all the grandchildren taking turns to feed the dough while the cook desperately tried to shoo us away.

LPG burners arrived when I was in the fourth standard. I have vague memories of my mom cooking on the kerosene stove and sending me off to school.Anybody who has had any experience with the primus stove would know how tough it was to get the thing going. Life became easier with the arrival of LPG. Refrigerators and cars were the greatest life style symbols that one could aspire for. Yet our mothers cooked fresh breakfast; no fast foods or instan t mixes and sent us to school on time.While the kids divided their time between academic and physical activities, the mothers chugged away with the daily domestic routine of washing, shopping etc.In bthe pre TV era, mothers spent the afternoons, doing various types of handwork, crafts etc.Not for them, those endless sitcoms and soupy- weepies destined to give  a pain in the neck or back.

My grandmother  would squat against the aruvamanai, that indispensable chopping accessory in a South Indian kitchen and slice a variety of veggies into uniformly regular half inch slices for the good old avial. She employef a cook but thw job of chopping vegetables was never relegated to her whereas I flip my lid if my vegetable chopping maid fails to turn up.Squatting on folded knees  against the ammi to grind coconut paste or a thuvayal and wAhing clothes on the washing stone were all easily completed chores. Our mothers and grandmothers belonged to a generation that believed in doing physical work specially for the sake of the family good. Simple domestic activities like cooking, knitting,embroidery, drawing rangolis etc.were highly pleasurable activities because of their social and aesthetic value. Many of our mothers were not high ranking executives earning fat pay packets but the enduring values they imbibed in us help us today to live balanced lives, without getting carried away by the perpetual race of one upmanship and pursuit of material mirages.When my fingers stiffen due to excessive use of the keypad or mouse, I think of mothers and aunts stringing  jasmine and drawing kolams. They had finger coordination, strong legs and straight backs and therefore did not suffer from the various musclo- skeletal diseases plaguing modern youngsters.

Modern day technology has changed life styles with the deluge of conveniences that if has brought in its wake.  Information technology has helped us to explore and learn and eased the tedium of umpteen daily and lifestyle chores. But every now and then, my heart Iongs for the simple,wholesome pleasures that our ancestors enjoyed.