79 Wedding bell for our son and lessons in cooking

Briefly,  I had  mentioned about the  career  of my son in an earlier  episode. After  completing his  MBBS from Calicut  Medical College, he prepared for the  Post Graduate  Medical Entrance and got admission for  Diploma  in Paediatrics  first  based on All Indian Entrance   rank and later  got admission to MD (Radiodiagnosis)  both  in Calicut  Medical College.  Along with the  MD, he also completed the requirements for Diplomate  of National Board (DNB) and started  practicing  in  a private  hospital  in Calicut enjoying  mummy’s  home food all along. Later  he moved to another  hospital where  some work on interventional radiology was being done. He was also planning to write  the examinations for the  Fellowship of the Royal College  of Radiologists(FRCR,UK). While  these were going on, we asked him whether we can try  to get a  girl for him. When he gave us the green signal, we  were  on the look out for a suitable  girl, preferably  from the same  profession. Soon enquiries  started  coming in and among these  one was from a family of doctors in Thiruvananthapuram.  The girl had  completed  her  MBBS from Thiruvananthapuram  Medical College  and was  doing her  house surgency. During the  first MBBS, she  had studied in Calicut  Medical College as her father was  on the  faculty  here. The  girl  was  from a family  of surgeons, her  father  a cardio-thoracic surgeon and later Medical Superintendent in Sri Chitra Medical Institute, uncle  a general surgeon running his  own Surgical clinic  both retired professors from Medical College Thiruvananthapuram.( Now  her  only brother  is also a heart  surgeon  in Sri Chitra  Medical Centre TVM).

So, we  requested our daughter’s in-laws in TVM to go and see the girl and tell us what they think of her as a match for  our son. They reported  that  the girl  is just like  our daughter, always smiling  and will  be an ideal  match for  our boy.  So, there was    nothing more to think, the family was  like  ours, girl  nice and of the same  profession and  as  usual, the formalities like  the boy meeting  the girl, her family coming to  us  in Calicut and we  going  to their house  were  completed soon. As   they were firm devotees  of Guruvayurapan , we decided to have  the  wedding  ceremony at Guruvayur. After the wedding , we  arranged a small  reception  for  my friends and colleagues   at  Azhakodi   temple  marriage   hall and they had  their  own reception at Trivandrum  Club. Our  son continued  his job in the private  hospital and  his wife started  her  preparation  for PG entrance .  In fact, out trip  to Turkey was a few  months after the  wedding  and we left  the responsibility  of running the  house to them. They had excellent company  with a  few  of his class mate doctors  practicing in Calicut and newly married. Later we  came to know  that  practically  very little cooking was done at home and they had ransacked all the  reasonably good  restaurants  like Paragon, Sainus   etc  in Calicut.  So, for almost a year, the three families were in three  different continents, we  on the  gateway  to Europe, daughter and her  husband  in USA and  our son and daughter in law  our  own great  India.

During the  first semester  break  in Turkey, we  had gone to  UK /USA  and on return moved  to North Cyprus.  From there, during the  first break   we    came to India when we  had the pleasant   news that we  are   going to be  grandpa and grandma  as our daughter in law was  on the family way. As she had the  usual  problems  of  morning sickness and all, mother  was  not ready to leave   her  daughter(in law) alone. I left  my  wife  to take care  of her and  our first  grandchild.

So, for the  first time, I had  to be alone  after getting married. The problem  when we  live in an alien land alone  is the  food. Food is available from the  university canteen, but if we take it regularly for a few months, we will  become fat in no time. Even  getting a vegetable  sandwich was  difficult. Mostly,  only  chicken  or  meat  sandwich was  the one  available  most of the time.  Fortunately, my wife  had  given  me a set of recipes’   so that  I can cook   my food. Several packets  of masala powders proved  very handy. In my younger  days at home,   my sister and myself used to cook  our food at home when our mother was  ill and so I had to brush up my old cooking  habits. Fortunately , most of our colleagues in the  faculty apartments were  cooking  own food. I  had  an ideal company  in Dr. Bala, our Dean whose  family (wife and daughters) was  in Coimbatore and was also alone.  My  experiments  on cooking were supported  by  recipe’s  kept below  the  gas oven and whenever  I had some doubt, I used to call  my wife  and clear  my doubts. Simple  European breakfast  with   bread  butter  jam and omelette   was   regular. As we had winter timings, classes were  over by 2PM, we   used  to cook our lunch  after  the class  hours. Dr.Bala and me used to exchange our sambaar and rasam somehow,  we managed  to keep our stomach quiet without adding much body weight.   

As we used  to collect  our grocery  from the military canteen once in a week , usually on Saturday   mornings, most  of the  major cooking  was on the weekends. As we had an excellent  fridge and a microwave  oven , we used to  buy chicken  for the  whole week and keep it cooked  in the refrigerator and whenever  required   used to defrost it in the microwave before  eating. Practically there was  no power failure and the refrigerator was  very good, there was no question of food getting damaged. We  even celebrated  one Onam, with  Dr.Bala  making excellent  rasam and aviyal and me sambaar  and thoran with gheer  made  of vermicelli and milk  of excellent  quality available  in plenty  from our neighbours.  From my  experience, I used to advise  my students interested  in going abroad to learn their engineering well , at the same,  learn how  to cook your essential food  from your  mother. Otherwise, you  will either starve  or  become  too fat  very soon. McDonald  and KFC  you can   have  once  in a while, but if you make it  your regular  food, you will soon end up with obesity, hypertension  etc.