Mommy Hustler

In a world where the Instant Pot has taken over the modern Indian kitchen, I am reluctant to embrace this change. No, nothing against the Instant Pot. It’s more to do with my attachment to the one kitchen appliance (calling it a ‘utensil’ or even ‘equipment’ just doesn’t cut it) that’s omnipresent across almost all Indian kitchens - the pressure cooker or to put it simply just ‘cooker’. A recent viral video of ‘Khaali cooker gas pe chadha diya’ made me realise the sheer amount of mass appeal that this humble appliance still holds. For the uninitiated, the video is of a scene from a daily Hindi soap where a mother in law is very obviously losing her cool (cue : big eyes, angry expression and overdramatic background score) upon finding an empty cooker on the kitchen stove. She is literally mimicking the pressure cooker as she goes on to ‘blow her top’ and asks in no uncertain terms about who was responsible for this seemingly unforgivable act.  Growing up in a middle class home in M...

Being strong and brave has always been admired whereas expressing any sort of vulnerability is looked down upon. When someone is articulating their feelings of vulnerability, our first response is to say “oh you are so brave” or “you are a fighter”. We say this perhaps with the intention of making the other person feel better. However by saying this what we are doing is that we are indirectly telling this other person that their feelings of vulnerability are in fact not valid because hey remember you’re strong right ?  We need to change the conversation here and it needs to happen now. The person who is accepting their vulnerability and speaking about it is in fact very strong. It takes a special kind of strength to be vulnerable. So yes they know they are strong. They didn’t ask for your validation about it . What they did ask was for you to acknowledge their feelings of vulnerability rather than trying to put a “positive spin” on everything. Because sometimes , it’s important to ...