Phodanicha bhaat!

All the non-marathi readers must be wondering what exactly the title is. It means 'Tadke wala rice', verbatim. We Indians usually don't like to waste food. We make sure the stale food that's edible is converted into something which is different from its original state or taste, to get a feeling of eating something interesting and diverse from the one we had yesterday. Well, mother's especially, have this unique ability to use and reuse everything till its last drop. And isn't it a great habit? Whether its food or clothes, there's so much of labour, effort, sweat and blood that goes into making them. 

Starting from the farmer to the manufacturer, to the consumer, everyone in this chain has worked hard to create and utilise all of that. And we can't waste their efforts nor ours. Each house, I'm sure, has that piece of rag, used for cleaning, which was once an elegant garment, adorned by a person in that house. It transforms itself from ourdoor wear to indoor wear and later metamorphosizes into indoor/outdoor cleaning purposes. But I'm not ashamed of this culture at all. I proudly use such rag to dry my scooter after the wash or wipe the seat of scooter after rains. 

Be it leftover rotis or rice, we have all sorts of magical recipes, Abra-Ca-Dabra....and Yay! A new dish is ready. 

In western countries, if I'm not wrong, they throw away things after a few years. They don't go for repairs, they just buy new one. But we don't believe in that. We proudly drive our years old car, maintaining it properly, we use refrigerators passed from one generation to other, we fix our mixies, irons, TV sets, mobiles etc. Somewhere we are attached to things we buy from our hard earned money and somewhere we know that so many people out there cannot afford half of those things. Being a heavily populated country, may be we care. For the resources are limited, we know. 

Reduce, reuse, recycle, isn't a fuss,

Save the planet, really? Save us!

 

©️Jui Purohit.