MANAGEMENT LESSONS FROM MY MOM’S KITCHEN

- Vaishali Sethi

Being an Indian make me a part of the culture where the kitchen is the most happening place in the house. It is one place where some work is usually happening at almost all times during the day. 

Kitchen work generally forms the most important engagement of the home makers and provides employment as well, be it to the lady who comes to clean the dishes or be it the cook or others in similar professions. 

Here are a few very striking pointers I came across while my hanging around outside the kitchen at home:

Ü One must have the right knowledge of the task undertaken. 

      Imagine a cook who has no knowledge of what is to be cooked and how. All we can expect from such a person is to come up with either a brilliant new invention (rarely so) or just some disastrous, inedible attempted replication of some existing recipe. Remember the age old joke of people having discovered sugar in place of salt and vice versa in the dishes they were eating? Imperfect knowledge can only, most likely, lead to a catastrophe and be extremely bad and harmful for life in general.

Ü Right ingredients in the right quantity and at the right time. 

     All of us are well aware of what might happen if the ingredients of a dish were not added in the right quantity and proportion. We might just end up having a turmeric and pepper laced ‘halwa’ too sugary or chapatti smeared with peanut butter. Yuck! In real life also, it is of significant importance that we add the right components in perfect or near perfect proportions to get the desired results.

Ü It is all about group work. 

      We must assess our abilities well in advance and work accordingly. Just as a single grain of rice or a single gram seed cannot make an entire meal, it is possible that we are a part of a task that we cannot humanly bring about alone. Here comes the importance of team work. A bowl full of rice grains can definitely make a decent meal. A lot many of the tasks which cannot be accomplished alone can be, by a group.

Ü Ghee-Makhan Laga ke. 

     Have you ever seen how nasty it smells when the butter at home is boiled to make Ghee? Butter is tasty, but Ghee has its own place of pride. It is one thing that is used in the pious rituals like hawans, is a symbol of prosperity and affluence, and, no doubt, makes the food super tasty. Is this not due to the tough transformation it has to go through. Rephrasing the age old proverb, ‘Test of heat makes fine ghee’!

Ü Difficulties mustn’t enslave us. 

      It is the difficult time that makes a man what he is. Tasting is fine, but can we actually eat the raw batter of a cake? Not even 1 spoonful, I can bet on it. When the eggs are beaten, and added to a number of other things and the whole thing is made to shift bowls and finally made to endure the hardship of 180^o C of the oven, what come out is the sweet smelling cake. The rising of the batter is a sign of triumph over all the difficulties that all the ingredients have had to face in their run to be the cake. None of the ingredients has its original entity intact now, but the awesome unified mass is what makes all of them the equal kings.

Ü Flexibility is the key. 

     Rigidity is the aspect that can sure bring upon the downfall of even the mightiest. Those who wish to survive in the long run must inculcate flexibility. Just as a whole big bottle gourd or a big round pumpkin cannot be cooked and eaten as a whole and have to be cut into smaller pieces, it is of paramount importance, that at times we must be willing to let go of our pride and rigidity to accomplish great goals of life.

(The article was published in a local newspaper, THE MAYUR INFOMAIL, MAY 1-15, 2013)