If you want something to be done just the way you want it, move your butt and do it yourself. That’s my mantra.

Of course I don’t mean big things like building a house or making a car or a table, not even a bally pencil. I wouldn’t know how to go about making them. The most I know is that houses need bricks and cement and stuff like that and cars are made of metal, fibre, glass et al. Tables need wood and all kind of machinery to cut it into required size, and a pencil needs graphite, but beats me how they manage to fit it inside the wood (it IS wood, right?) covering outside.

So you see, I have the most ‘general’ general knowledge but not the specifics or the ability (or the stamina required!) to go about making it from scratch. These things I’ll shop for, till I find something I am okay with. That’s the best I can do under the circumstances. But what I mean when I say ‘do it yourself’ are things of a more personal nature like those involved in the running of a household. My household.

I have seen some people who are experts in getting others to do things their way in their house, or even outside. Whether it be from the house help or the husband or mothers or mothers in law, or even guests, they just know what to say to get them to toe their line. Me? I am a dud. Abysmal at it would be another way of putting it. If I tell the L&M do it this way, he will do it that way. Same with mother. So you see, I simply cannot make others do things my way for peanuts. I DO know what I want though and what I do is quietly take over and not let anyone interfere with my work. Less hassle and more satisfaction.

Take the case of the making of sambar. Sambar is a lentil based curry with lots of veggies thrown in, with added tamarind water and flavoured with a special mix of spices called the sambar masala and seasoned with mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and coriander leaves. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Use clarified butter aka ghee for the seasoning and your sambar will turn out super tasty.

Anyway…

One day I told my Woman Friday to make sambar. She came up with a gooey looking vegetable and lentil mixture that looked like sambar which had gone through some kind of physical and mental agony. The brinjal pieces had lost the battle early on and quietly dissolved into nothingness. The ash gourd pieces though jelly-like in appearance, were bravely trying to hold the fort and their shape. The poor drumsticks who prided themselves on being the stronger ones had disintegrated into tiny sticks out of sheer helplessness. The pieces of snake gourd refused to succumb to the pressure and were keeping a brave front. The cluster bean pieces were in their original shape probably because they weren’t the tender kind anyway.

I was loathe to call it sambar. It could be called sambash or something for the way everything seemed to have been mashed and bashed together.

What had happened was that the Woman Friday had dumped the vegetables and lentils into the pressure cooker and gone about her other duties. She calls it time-management, and I say ‘stuff-and-nonsense’. Leaving something to overcook on the stove and doing other things can never be time-saving, only food-destroying.

I told her not to cook the vegetables and lentils together in the pressure cooker. Their ‘needs’ of pressure are different. How about the lentil being cooked under pressure and the vegetables boiling merrily in a pan or wok? Time saved equally, right? Woman Friday nodded her head and I sighed resignedly. I knew instinctively that the minute my back was turned, she’d throw everything in the pressure cooker. Guess who had to eat it? Poor old me, and poor old L&M of course.

Hereafter, I shall make sambar, I decided then and there. I instructed the WF to cut the veggies and leave it for me to make sambar later. And that’s how it happened that I am now the official sambar-maker in spite of the WF being the cook. I am also the broccoli thoran maker and lots of other stuff as well. Maybe soon I’ll start making the vegetable stew as well. I have have had enough of the overcooked vegetables – which disintegrate on touch – floating in coconut milk. Sigh.

©️ Shail Mohan 2024