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Journalism of Courage
Ashutosh tewari, 27, left Allahabad after graduating five years ago to take up a BPO job in Mumbai. 8220;For a fresher, things couldn8217;t be better. I planned to work for a few years and then study MBA. I packed my best clothes and was off to a new life,8221; he says. He shacked up with a few other boys, worked overtime and de-stressed by checking out the sights and sounds of Mumbai. 8220;One fine day, I realised I8217;d been living on vada pav ever since I had arrived. I wanted the dal-chawal mom made. I tried the dabbawallahs and it didn8217;t work for me, I queued up at roadside jhunka bhakar eateries with taxi drivers for the spicy, oily thali that came for Rs 18. By the end of three months, I was back home with jaundice and had to take a long leave from work. As I recuperated, the one man I thought about very often was Napoleon Bonaparte. What a guy! He had known an army marches on its stomach,8221; he says.
There8217;s a dream job waiting in a different city, or a college in another country. Every day, hundreds of youngsters pack their bags and move to cities to work, study or break free. Food isn8217;t on their minds. 8220;It is ironic that they ignore the one thing that could give them a competitive edge in their jobs or work. The drive to get anywhere needs fuel,8221; says nutritionist Ishi Khosla.
Tewari learnt to cook and returned to his job. Now, a business analyst with a Mumbai-based firm, he still pops liver pills every day8212;the after-effects of jaundice. Like him, most youngsters are realising that they need to master a new skill 8212; cooking for survival. This group of kitchen rookies are clubbed as Bachelor Cooks by a Delhi-based software engineer Anthony
8220;It always helps when you have grown up watching somebody cook. My mother and sister are good in the kitchen,8221; says Vi-Vi Anne, a 30-something AIR FM radio jockey who moved from Darjeeling to Delhi seven years ago. She recalls the time she bought expensive rajma from a fancy store and set about cooking it as soon as she reached home. 8220;My friend had given me a rajma curry recipe and I followed the instructions to the last letter. But the beans remained hard as ever even after boiling for over an hour. I threw it away and went off to the store to complain. That8217;s when I found out that rajma must be soaked overnight and boiled in a pressure cooker. Enlightenment!8221; she laughs. Now, a good cook, Vi-Vi Anne says that sometimes all it takes to start a new hobby is a packet of rajma.
While things can be nightmarish for the culinary challenged, even expert cooks have to re-learn a thing or two. Rema Bhattacharya, 28, an analytics professional, who shifted from Kolkata to Mumbai and Delhi to work, cooked as a hobby at home. 8220;It8217;s fun in a sparkling, well-equipped kitchen. At the hostel where I stay, the kitchen boasts only a gas oven, a kadhai and little else. No microwave, not even a pressure cooker,8221; she grins. A health freak, her mantra, she says, is 8220;innovation, imagination and experimentation8221;. 8220;While processing for breakfast, I pack my lunch. If it is watermelon for breakfast, it will be watermelon and a poached fish sandwich for lunch and plain poached fish for dinner. I make do with that one kadhai. I create my own recipes and there is no magic ingredient, everything can be substituted or done without. If I don8217;t have lettuce for a sandwich, I use cabbage, if there is no garam masala, I make do with onion and tomato for fish curries, if there8217;s no oil, I let chicken stew in its own juice,8221; she says.
Maria Pastorello, a 27-year-old trainee at the Italian Cultural Centre in Delhi, says if it weren8217;t for innovation she would have starved to death in her six months in India. 8220;Most regular Italian ingredients are either not available in Delhi, are too expensive or unsuitable to be eaten in the sultry weather here,8221; she says. She has stopped eating pasta and lives on rice instead, pocket-friendly Amul cheese is her Parmesan and vegetable from the thelawalas near her flat get an Italian makeover with garlic and basil in her kitchen. 8220;As for extra virgin olive oil, I don8217;t remember when I used that last. On the up side, I have discovered bhindi, which isn8217;t grown in Italy, is the most delightful vegetable ever,8221; she says.
Sabyasachi Upadhyay, 32, vice-president at Wall Street Derivates Financial, left India 10 years ago to study and work in New Zealand. He survives on large glasses of protein shakes when he isn8217;t eating out with clients. He carries jars of protein shakes on business trips around the world, supplementing the foreign fare with his daily glass-full. 8220;The only thing I can make is grilled fish. When my parents started looking for a bride for me, I hoped she would like to cook,8221; he says.
8220;A journey of a thousand miles begins with the right diet,8221; says Tewari. Napoleon Bonaparte would have agreed.
