Thursday 25 April 2019

Cooking.... The LAZY way out!











After a long long time, I got into a local train and memories came rushing back as I stood there looking at the harrowed and tired face of women rushing back from work.  A sudden feeling of déjà vu and I went back thirty five years ago to those days when I jumped into the local at Churchgate to get a seat. Life is not easy when you are working and I know this because for years I too rushed home to manage the kitchen and bring up my two devils. It was a whirlwind life and believe me when I say that even then we were crushed like sardines in a tin in the locals. 

Planning the menu in the head whilst travelling and grabbing on to the handle in a jam packed fast train to deciding the stuff to buy as soon as I get off the train. Did that help? or was I just too jealous of those women sitting in the train peeling green peas and breaking the beans into smaller pieces. That was indeed the way to go but then I needed a seat in the train for that, right!!!  That most awful time of running home to make a load full of dough for the rotis for my in-laws family of eight.  Just forty odd ones too.... Oh yes, I would be the one to reach home first most times so always got started with the help of my mom-in-law. That phase lasted for many years till we decided to hire a cook... and when I moved to my place it was the saviour - the bread.. and why not, after all I was a parsi and parsis ate bread and always had the eggs handy. Eggs, my utmost favorite comfort food till date, so easy to cook up.  I remember a friend at work asking me one day why do we put eggs on everything from bheenda par edu, to tomato par edu, to saali par edu and he got a rap on his knuckles for being cheeky enough to ask whether we put egg on our dal and curry too !!!  Oh yes, I love those instant products available today.  The non-veg and veg instant mixes available in easy packs. The delicious chicken/mutton masala mixes - chettinad, malai, butter, moghalai, tandoori - .name it and its available and the same masala works beautifully for vegetables too... After all it is just a marketing strategy to say non-veg and veg because it becomes non-veg only when the non-veg is added...ha ha ha.... Love it even today ! Just 10 minutes of defrosting and mixed up with my meat and popped into the cooker.

It wasn't that easy when I was a kid though... I still remember all those Sundays when Mom slaved in the kitchen making those masalas, storing garlic and ginger paste, storing the curry masala and even fried onions. Those many weekend masala grinding childhood days when Mom would sit us down to peel the garlic and slice onions in what seemed like kilos and never-ending.  That going to the bazaar to get the stuff for the week and then washing it all to make smaller packs of the meats and freezing it.  Then there were those days when I stared at those crabs trying to crawl out of the vessel and I actually volunteered to wash fish. Many still do that till date but it is all about to each her own. 

And then there is nothing wrong with innovating with leftovers by just adding tomato puree and making it a gravy dish with rice or making your own jhatpat “bhajias” out of left over vegetables and plonking them into tomato/onion puree or even kneading them up in the dough. That worked for me… these shortcuts did.  Rice was meant to be left over to turn into delicious pakodas with tea the next day. Till today I deliberately ensure that rice is left over to be dunked into loads of curd and made into pakodas!

Do I love to cook you may ask and do I? Well, as a kid I did go to baking classes and my younger sister still remembers the aroma of breads and cheese straws baking in the oven.  I love baking and do that off and on, but not much of cooking because when your daughter takes over the kitchen and feeds you with "FOOD" the way it is meant to be, then there is no need for shortcuts, is there??

Tuesday 23 April 2019

Follow the leader !!! Yes or No?











I have been a part of The Indian Association of Secretaries and Administrative Professionals for a decade now. IASAP encourages continuous learning and development of secretaries and professionals through monthly meetings, networking and educational trips.  Recently, IASAP offered its members to participate in an essay contest on the topic "Supporting Leadership Responsibly" and I participated. Even though I did not win the contest, here is what I submitted on the topic and now that there is no constraint of word count... Well, I am adding a few words more here and there too!!

The word leadership to me reads as two words 'leader' and 'ship' which means to get a 'ship' to sail safely to the shore there has to be some to 'lead" it there. Can a ship float on its own without directions from the captain and support of the crew?  Most definitely not and that got me thinking back to my days of working at the bank. My portfolio of handling annual reports (for over 12 years) was no mean task. It required me to co-ordinate between content providers, agency, manage the flow of corrections between the content providers and the agency with deadlines and standardisation thrown in with a lot of stress. Even though I had my superior to support me and it was my project, I wonder whether I could make a claim to fame and whether it could have been effective by my efforts alone. Not at all, because it meant leaving the "me" behind and working alongside each and everyone, at every level of the bank to get the work done. I always believe that good leadership and team work can far outweigh what an individual can achieve.

Uncanny but just before this contest form dropped into my mailbox I had been surfing facebook. I love listening to Steve Harvey, Ellen De Generes (who I prefer to call Ellen the Generous) and Jay Shetty  so when a video by Richard Pimentel in a on The Daily Goalpost face book page dropped it caught my attention.  Richard Pimentel says, "I learnt leadership by being a good follower. I had a leader who asked me to risk my life in Vietnam. We were up this hill and trapped and Sergeant said it is our responsibility to stay there. I said responsibility? He said 'do you know what responsibility is Richard? It is a word make up of two words - the word 'responsible' and the word 'ability'. Responsibility is not what one puts on you. It isn't your job description or your job responsibility or a paper you sign. We all find ourselves looking at situations and we all find ourselves with abilities and what we have to ask is, given the situation what t to those abilities", and at the end he added these poignant words "Leaders do not get people to believe in them. Leaders find ways to get people believe in themselves".

Author Alan Zimmerman says, "Employees were expected to park their brains, shut their mouths and work their 40 hours a week. In the new world, employees are expected to take responsibility to use all their talents and to perform with excellence". So then how does a professional like you and me do that, I ask? Is it just about responsibility, performance or consistently trying to stand out for what you can bring to the table or is it more? I firmly believe that it is not just about the willingness, commitment, completing tasks on time, motivation or even the positive attitude. To me, most importantly, it is about being happy with the work you do. It is a little more than that too. If you cannot align yourself to the company's vision and mission and if you do not respect or believe in your leader and in his leadership, then the bigger picture is going to be missed altogether. Appreciate the fact that good leaders know when to lead and when to step back because that is why they are leaders! ... and on your part be the support who believe that leader is also concerned about them. After all as a saying goes "a perfect employee is the one who inspires his boss as much as his boss inspires him".