My First Cooking Experience!

Uppuma Time | Hostel Days

#funwithcooking 😊

19 September 1996

#memoriesfromdiaries 

[This day, 27 years ago]

Hostel life is real fun you see! 😊

One fine day, early into the morning, [a bit tired of eating from hotels], I had quietly taken a daring resolve, to opt for the ‘high-risk category’ work – making my own breakfast - all by myself! 😉

With this great resolve up my sleeve, I gently went to the nearest vegetable shop, bought the required ingredients – right from salt, mustard seeds, Rava (semolina), Sugar, dry chillies, onion, tomatoes, etc, and then, first things first - looking skyward, offered a little prayer, asking for God’s protection, care and guidance, in my first tryst with making my breakfast all by myself – Call it Uppuma for now, folks!

Within a short time, the jelly oops I mean the Uppuma was ready. 😉

Thank God, no culinary experts were around! 

Otherwise, they’d have, I’m sure, seized the blessed moment, to give the jelly-like breakfast some interesting new name of their own sweet choice and liking, and woulda sure made it viral as well!

So yes! After having finished making my breakfast, I was so thrilled and happy.

The feel and the mood was something akin to the likes of Tendulkar, looking up skyward after hitting his century, you see! 😊

On this happy-happy mode and mood, I gracefully offered my vote of thanks to the heavens above, and proceeded to start on the next crucial component of cooking – the eating part! 😊

But you see, I found out to my utter, bitter shock, that the Uppuma (for now let’s agree to tentatively call it this way please) 😉 had become a bit too hard, like the rock-solid stones you find on your trek up the mountains!

But… I didn’t want to despise my own cooking you see!

So I took a sacred and solemn second resolve now! to push it down my stomach!

And Hurray! I did! And how!!!

Today, thanks to my adventures with cooking, I’ve learnt to make some added dishes.

Pandemic times were those high-octane experimentation times, when I experimented with a variety of dishes, and found takers for my eating as well!

So yes! cooking is an art, that you master by patient practice over time! 😊

This is just a little motivation for all ye aspiring cooks out there! Godspeed to thee!

Coming back,

Well, Higginbothams, Mount Road, was a hot-favourite with students back then in the 1990s. You got the latest books – both fiction and non-fiction – at this sacred abode of knowledge!

New Century Book House, again in Mount Road, had a huge premises, which contained a whole lot of literature from Russia as well, so beautifully lined up in their stacks.

This particular day was a memorable day for me, you see, because I had almost got my membership in Connemara Library, Egmore, on this blessed day.

Added charm to this particular day, because we had the sensational Third ODI between India and Pakistan, the Sahara Friendship Cup, at Toronto.

India had won by a record 55 runs.

Quite interestingly, Nayan Mongia had opened the batting line-up today with Sachin Tendulkar, and both were out quite soon, in quick succession, dismally scoring just two runs, each!

Today it was the bowlers who stole the show for India.

Disciplined bowling by Venky Prasad, Anil Kumble, Srinath, Joshi and Tendulkar, was the main reason for today’s record win against Pakistan.

Well, the word ‘Puscot’ that I’ve circled in blue on my diary entry, refers to the night meals that we hostelers usually had on the ‘Push Cart’ adjacent to our hostel, that served such yummy egg dosas with equally tasty chutney and sambhar for company. A sumptuous dinner at puscot cost us just around Rs.10/-

And it was just Re.1 for Cycle Parking Fees at Connemara Library Premises back then!

On the whole, 19 September 1996 was a real memorable day that remains etched in my memories up until today!