STAGE 1: The day we bought a microwave oven, my mother read
the oven manual thoroughly and arranged for a demo from a trainer of the shop
to get herself familiarised with all the functions of the oven.
STAGE 2: Immediately after its arrival, the oven stole the
limelight from all other electronic gadgets/equipments in our home, be it, our
new plasma television, or the new treadmill, or the split A.C etc. Mom
excitedly would show the latest ‘hero’ of electronic gadgets to all the
neighbours and relatives who walked into our home.
She donned gloves and baked pizzas, grilled sandwiches,
cooked idlis and curries in the oven. The entire kitchen process happened
within the 4 walls of the oven and she became the expert of microwave cooking The
stove took a ‘back-burner’ and was shun to the attic of the kitchen.
STAGE 3: Weeks later, she still used the oven but only
to re-heat the left-overs of the previous day and recycle them the next day.
Usually I and my dad try to go for extra helpings and finish
the items that day itself, lest my mom refrigerates the left-overs and presents
the same items the next day also, which we manage to gulp down without
grumbling but with long, sad faces.
Before the oven, my mom used the stove but finding it
little cumbersome to heat on the stove, she would mostly give away the old food
to the maids. But with this oven, my mom found re-heating easier and quicker. I
and my dad found ourselves eating stale food every other day and mom would take
a lot of holidays from cooking. How we would curse the oven then!
My mom reasoned with us that ‘conventional cooking’ is the
best, and cooking the food over the flame rather than using ‘some rays’
enhances the taste of the food. The stove was dusted clean and put into use.
STAGE 4: When my mom resorted to conventional cooking, the
oven lost its identity and the real reason of its existence. It has been many
months and now my mom uses the oven, only as a cupboard to store her purse or to
hide things from us.
Once, my neighbour brought expensive calorie-laden cream
chocolates. My sister ate only them and skipped food. My angry mom hid the
chocolates safely inside the oven. My sister searched the fridge and entire
house but she never was able to guess the hide-out place.
STAGE 5: Lately, she thinks the oven is very bulky and
occupies too much space on the kitchen platform. It won’t be late before my mom
banishes the oven into the storeroom alongside the miserable and neglected
equipments such as vacuum cleaner, electric kettle, electric roti-maker,
toaster etc, all of which lay idle, rusted and redundant, leading a futile
existence.
My mom has a fad of buying every modern gadget and is amused in
it for a few weeks, then her transitory interest diminishes and the poor
gadgets are ordained to rust in the murky corners of the storeroom.
