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...However, widows (and widowers like me) were not supposed to touch onions...apparently the harmless bulb tends to increase our tamo-gun (simply speaking, libido).
I had a problem when my mother-in-law (M-i-L) was staying with us at KGP for all of six months...she was recovering from PT. As expected, as soon as she arrived, she captured the kitchen of my poor wife. After a week I asked my wife why onion had suddenly vanished from our household. And my wife told me that her mom, widowed a couple of years back, doesn't eat onions and so doesn't use them in any dish she made.
This was just short of Marie Antionette's autocracy. I asked my wife why her fond mom couldn't remove her portion of curry, sambar, chutney or whatever, for her own blessed consumption and then add the golden onions for the consumption of the rest of mankind. My wife just demurred...she was a dutiful daughter well before she became a dutiful wife...M-i-L's are first in the family protocol and rest of us have to obey...grumbling and bitching but lumping it.
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2014/04/onion-tomato-garlic-2.html
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...However, widows (and widowers like me) were not supposed to touch onions...apparently the harmless bulb tends to increase our tamo-gun (simply speaking, libido).
I had a problem when my mother-in-law (M-i-L) was staying with us at KGP for all of six months...she was recovering from PT. As expected, as soon as she arrived, she captured the kitchen of my poor wife. After a week I asked my wife why onion had suddenly vanished from our household. And my wife told me that her mom, widowed a couple of years back, doesn't eat onions and so doesn't use them in any dish she made.
This was just short of Marie Antionette's autocracy. I asked my wife why her fond mom couldn't remove her portion of curry, sambar, chutney or whatever, for her own blessed consumption and then add the golden onions for the consumption of the rest of mankind. My wife just demurred...she was a dutiful daughter well before she became a dutiful wife...M-i-L's are first in the family protocol and rest of us have to obey...grumbling and bitching but lumping it.
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2014/04/onion-tomato-garlic-2.html
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President Obama has joked plenty about his gray hair, usually attributing it to his hard work in the White House and on the campaign trail.
But in Michelle Obama's new "Good Morning America" interview with Robin Roberts, the first lady confesses, "People think the gray is from his job -- it's from his children."
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Come on! The President and the First Lady are being coy about his gray hair...they will next attribute it to ex-president Clinton...apparently Clinton is now worried about aliens invading the White House...no end of Oval Office worries for him it looks.
The first couple think they can fool an old, white-haired, South-Indian brahmin like me. They think I can't diagnose gray hair when I see it...it is due to them onions that the resident mother-in-law outlawed from the White House kitchen.
In May 2007, while I was staying with my sick mom at Gudur, my son and his proposed bride met up in the conventional bride-seeing ceremony in Hyderabad at the bride's uncle's place in Miyapur, with the bride's parents and uncles and aunties and grannies and their kids on their side, and my lonely wife on ours overseeing the formal affair. And then informed me on phone that the boy and the girl (as they call them) liked each other and gave me the go-ahead to proceed with the nitty-gritty of marriage 'negotiations'.
I was worried that the bride's entire family and friends and middle-men would land up at our tiny place at S R Nagar in Hyderabad for the big meeting, cornering me and my wife by sheer force of numbers. So I rang them up and told them that only the bride's father and mother are allowed to meet me and my wife...none else.
So the twosome arrived one afternoon while my son was away at his office, worrying. And we four sat by our dining table and checked item by item in black and white, settling the dates and venues for the wedding and reception and gold and money and purohits and band-baaza and hotel accommodation and transport at Nellore for us and our guests and saris and garlands and suits and boots and videographers and albums and every tiny detail lest there should be any misunderstanding later on.
The bride's parents were very happy and relieved that we didn't demand for ourselves a single rupee as dowry which is the principal worry of bride's parents in AP.
Finally it came to the three wedding-feasts to be hosted to one and all at the marriage function hall in Nellore. I kept silent on this item since I had no preference in this matter except that it should be fish-free...I had enough of looking at inconsolable fish fried in mustard oil while staying in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP during my bachelorhood (forced).
And I asked my wife to spell out the menu she had in her mind. And the two parties agreed amiably on each and every item starting from brinjal (egg plant) curry to the desserts.
And at last my good wife spelled out her ultimatum to the bride's parents:
"There should be no onion in any food item"
"What! No onions!"
"Not a single one"
"Not in brinjal curry?"
"No"
"Not even in gongura pacchadi?"
"No"
"Not in bhindi sambar?"
"No"
"Not even in vegetable pulav?"
"No"
"Strange!"
"Nothing strange about it...if your cooks can't cook meals without onions, let us know... we will bring our own Madhwa cooks"
"No..no...no...no...that would be insulting...we will go home and hunt for Madhwa cooks in Nellore...there ought to be some there"
"Please do! Even if there is a hint of onion smell in the food, I will stage a walk out"
"No, no, please! Don't get angry. Your word is law for us...you are our esteemed guests in the wedding function"
"Go ahead!"
They did go out, crest-fallen, and I dropped them in my jalopy at their place in Miyapur, trying to cheer them up as best as I could.
Returning to our place in S R Nagar, I cornered my wife and asked her why she was so adamant about poor onions which are friends of all vegetables. And she replied:
"My mother is planning to attend the wedding"
QED
...Posted by Ishani
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1 comment:
This history is repeating itself in my case. And like you, I have no preferences or demands, except that the concerned parties figure out the nitty-gritty amicably, and they don't forget to feed me!
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