SESAME OIL & SOY SAUCE RICE

This was our last night's dinner; the Oriental inspired rice with few vegetables, minced mutton shami kebabs done in grill mode without the egg coat, sunny side ups. You bet, it was a good way to feed the men some vegetables without overcooking. Had I served them a salad bowl of shredded cabbage, cherry tomatoes, spring onions tossed in different sauces; they would not have eaten. If they assured me with the comforting words, "give us meat and we will eat salads"; I would have happily complied, cooked meat everyday for them. I also do not like salads; I force myself to else my system won't  work. There is no word like force in their dictionary.

There were two bowls of left over rice from Wednesday night. This will keep happening if the senior's office is open. He goes for sudden official lunches; brings back his lunch box intact. He comes as late as 11pm without a single message that he will be late. Wednesday night, I was so hungry, yet I waited. I served the son dinner around 10pm, asked Cristine to eat; they retired to their rooms; I was still waiting. My calls were not answered. In this situation, I do not feel like eating; a fear grips in and I expect a call from the police or hospital, even from an unknown woman. I show temper once he is back, more when he says he does not want to eat dinner. Then, I never skip my meals out of anger or whatever. Why would I? Can I live without it for ever? Instead, I make him eat the same food with a little makeover. He cannot waste food. Yesterday night, I prepared this vegetarian, Oriental style SESAME OIL & SOY SAUCE RICE adding vegetables like shredded cabbage, cherry tomatoes, spring onion.

Our father and the man's mother had this habit of throwing away the food in anger. It is the last thing I will do. I am never in the habit of creating trouble for others. The mother-in-law tried a lot of these tactics to keep me under control, I never gave in; I have a life and I have to get out of this situation is what I knew. Our father was definitely a good human but did he ever think the trauma our mother had to go through each time he created such ruckus? She had to lose so much of her self respect wanting him get back in track. People who entered our family way later need not be judgemental about who is good and who is bad. I would ask them to do 1/20th of what our mother has done for the family and then give judgements. Because our father was not in the habit of supporting our mother in every matter; so he was so popular with some. Had the things be opposite; let me see what people had to say. Whoever gives you absolute freedom is always good.

The above is what I never allowed my mother-in-law to exercise on me. On days she had shown attitude which was regular when we stayed together; I would knock her door few times; no answer was just fine; I ate my food. Her loving big sissy and brothers' wives came; fell on her feet and made her eat. People who gather news about me from here & there should know all these. Our mother works all day, cooks, serves and eats her food. She is unhappy now that she has lost the liberty to go out often due to Covid19. If people find our mother troublesome, they had to live with my mother-in-law. What  is my brother's complain against his mother? "See didibhai, it's raining so hard and mani is in the terrace cleaning the fallen leaves. If she catches fever, the neighbours will complain and she will be taken to the quarantine centre, I cannot do anything!" It is a different thing man! However, I never say our mother is flawless, neither the rest are!

When people stay in honeymoon mood for years after marriage; I was going through all these with the husband sailing for months away from the home. Visiting my parents six days in a week was beyond my dream. Happiness, freedom did I taste in April, 2001 when we bought a 550 sq.ft.flat in Ashokgarh, Dunlop More! Oh! my God! Only in the recent years I came to know that my long time friend from college Nishi Pulugurtha lived just in the  opposite house. For six years, I did not know my friends' family stays there. I have always liked her being one of the few students serious about academics in an institution where everyone were relaxed except the economics, physics & chemistry departments, may be mathematics too. The Botany department faired well but was not really serious, I fell for a senior boy from the Botany department who I  never felt the urge to talk to; now cannot find him in FB. Anyway, for the same reason as Nishi, I liked the sweet, thin framed boy coming from Ishapore; who knew he will become such a rebel; anti establishment? Jaydip Sengupta's wife is one author Amrita Mukherjee; a journalist turned author! The journalist couple were  in Dubai, now settled in Kolkata with a young boy; Nishi will know better as they were from the same department, did university too together.

You can understand how engrossed I was bringing up our son in those years. In our six years of stay there; I have talked to my neighbours regularly, even to Nishi's landlord's  family standing in my balcony; they all knew I stayed with a tiny being alone. I knew they had two tenants downstairs; I even talked to the one Punjabi family, never met Nishi. I asked "Shoroshoti" about the residents living in the other side, she only could say "chout indian boudi ora." Many would know the entire Dunlop area has good number of Punjabis. I got my salwar suits sewed by the bhabis. I never wished to leave that area; never wished to admit our son to that new age school. I wanted to put him either in  St. James or DBPC but the husband wished to shift to the new sensation Rajarhaat / New Town area and put him in a new age school I did not want to. You see, none of these franchises can ever be like their main in RKPuram or even like the one in Vasant Kunj.

At that time, I was crazy about putting our son in one of the best schools of Kolkata. Till date I believe, if I had studied in Auxilium Convent or Loreto Sealdah, not even the one at Middleton Row, I would have done something in life. Please ask our Sourav Ganguly da why he shifted his daughter from the Heritage school to the Loreto, Middleton Row. Listen, we have heard Sourav never allowed his wife Dona to wear anything except saree, salwar suits. Does it mean he did not respect her wishes? Did not he defy his business tycoon family to marry Dona when he was not even a star cricketer? Coming to schooling; the good will always win in life, for us mediocre the school really matters. Till date my school does excellent result but students do not learn life skills there, they only study and score. The basic problem is with the teaching fraternity and the school management; they only take into consideration the first 7 to a maximum of 10 students in the class; the rest are like "porey paoa choddo ana." A teacher who discriminates violates the prime rule of being a good teacher. Oh Mani! how she sweated alone to put us in either one of these; Auxilium Convent, Loreto Sealdah, St.James, Calcutta Boys; ran from  pillars to post. We should have made her happy with academics; so I want the son to take himself up there; money comes second to me. Bhai did not fulfil my wish, the son has to. Come, let us share a more or less family friendly recipe, an Oriental style vegetarian SESAME OIL & SOY SAUCE RICE.

The father & brother are not fond of Oriental food. The father is no more, anyway I only serve chocolates to his photo on a regular basis, back home they serve everything he loved from fruits to fish; the brother will be happy to see the mutton shami kebab on the plate. I am waiting to see his favourite political party invading his kitchen one day and asking him to switch to vegetarian food; it will be a fun to see his broken self then. He will understand that the fascist, right wings never can get any good to the society, neither can a mad woman's poor, faulty administration & vote oriented politics; then who?

INGREDIENTS :

COOKED RICE : 2-3 COFFEE MUG
SHREDDED CABBAGE : 2 COFFEE MUG
CHERRY TOMATO : 6-7
CHOPPED SPRING ONION : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP
CHOPPED GREEN CHILLI : 1TBSP
MINCED GARLIC : 2TSP
MINCED GINGER : 1TSP
LIGHT SOY SAUCE : 3-4TBSP
CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 11/2TSP
SESAME OIL : 4TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Heat the oil in a wok. 

We had some cooked rice from the last night. You can cook it fresh.

We have peeled, washed and minced some ginger, garlic; washed and chopped the green chillies. They are ready on the kitchen counter; also the salt, light soy sauce and black pepper pot.

We have added the minced garlic & ginger to the oil and stirred at medium heat for a minute or until brown. We have added the chopped green chillies now and given a stir.

Then, we have added the shredded, washed cabbage and stirred at high heat for 3-4 minutes.

Next, we added the salt as required, the light soy sauce and crushed black pepper. We stir cooked at high heat for another minute and added the halved cherry tomatoes.

We gave it  half a minute of stir and added the cooked rice. We folded in well and stirred in high heat for 2-3 minutes. We may not require to add salt at this stage; if required, add little. I forgot to click this stage.

We enjoyed the Oriental styled rice with oven cooked shami kebab & sunny side ups.