When Summer Arrives, Go Solar

          Once upon a time, when energy conservation wasn’t fashionable and the term global warming wasn’t invented, I used a primitive dabba called the ‘solar cooker’ because ‘gas’ was rationed and expensive. Those who had a single cylinder had to keep track of its use and keep track of exactly when to book a refill so that it came just when the ‘gas got over’. Or depend on the messy, smelly, less efficient kerosene-stoves (I had a wick one) which had to be retrieved from attics or garage corners and spruced up urgently.

          In states (like Rajasthan, Andhra, UP, Jharkhand) where the summer sun’s rays can make your blood boil even in the shade, using the solar cooker wasn’t a fad. It was a wise investment. Bought with a government subsidy, mine paid for itself within two years, in reduced ‘gas’ consumption.

          It was a 2 ft x 2 ft plastic box with insulated walls, painted black within and without. There were two lids hinged at one side, which could sit on top of each other when shut. One lid was made of convex glass and the other had a mirror on the inside to catch and reflect rays. When closed, the glass lid touched the rubber rim of the box’s interior, thus sealing off whatever was kept within it: four thin aluminium vessels with lids, painted black on the outside. In these vessels I cooked our meals. Dal, rice, a vegetable and a cake could be cooked/baked in three-four hours. I’d ‘load’ my cooker in the morning and by lunchtime, the meal was ready. Roasting sooji/ groundnuts, clarifying butter, boiling potatoes, even making biscuits was possible. Whilst in use, the glass lid was kept down and the mirror-lid kept open. The heat generated was such that I suffered burns a couple of times when I opened the glass lid without taking adequate precautions. It had latches with kept the lids in place and wheels that helped transport it from one place to another.

          Since the cooker was left in the open verandah to get maximum sunlight, besides inquisitive neighbours, there was always a monkey or two that wanted to see what was inside. Specially when the vessels’ lids weren’t on (like when a brinjal was being roasted). It was amusing to me and horrifying to the poor animal when it touched what it thought was access to an easy meal and recoiled when it found it extremely hot to touch. I compensated it for the disappointment with a banana.

          “It was more,” Shri Husband said, “like you were paying fees for the entertainment it provided you.” Whatever. Sometimes, when I steamed fish in it, or broiled chicken, cats found their way to it, sniffed around and left disappointed.

          From March till the monsoons, with eight hours of bright daylight, I could cook two meals per day. Through the chilly winter months, it took an entire day for a single meal of four items. No, the ingredients didn’t spoil. Slow cooking has its advantages.

          The disadvantages were cloudy/ dusty days. Unexpected clouds meant the meal had to be transferred to a conventional cooking method, involving waste of time. Rare, that was.

“It’s surprisingly easy to predict weather conditions when your food depends on it.” Shri Husband stated once, long years ago.

“So,” some friends asked me, “How do you season the dals, sauté the vegetables?”

“Same as,” I answered, “when you boil something in a pressure-cooker or other vessel. After it’s cooked, you give the phodnni/ tadka.” But I’d found that if I seasoned the dal and sautéed the vegetables before putting it into the solar-cooker, at mealtime, I simply had to put the vessels directly to the table from the solar-cooker.” The difference in taste was negligible.

Can one solar-cook with coconut milk? Don’t know, never tried.

With my penchant for forgetting stuff, I learnt that nothing ever burns in a solar-cooker because the temperature doesn’t go beyond 100 deg C. And no ants/ cockroaches could enter the seal to the inner compartment even when I’d forgotten about the odd item left inside it.

“What else can you use the solar-cooker for?” Bai Goanna asked.

“Stupid question,” I retorted.

“Not really,” Shri Husband butted in. “A pressure-cooker can be used for autoclaving instruments in a crunch. So, is there any other use for a solar-cooker is a valid question. You may say ‘no’ if there is no other use, but you can’t call the question ‘stupid’.”

I reserved my comments. As always.

And then I remembered, I’ve used the solar-cooker for drying damp paper napkins and they’d come out as good as new.

“Why would you want to recycle used paper napkins?” Bai Goanna asked.

This really was a stupid question. I snapped: “Damp, unused.” Then added: “The solar-cooker was quite good for making crisp slightly soggy snacks and even roasting besan for ladoos. Of course, the micro-wave oven wasn’t available in India then.”

“You must have saved lots of money, huh?” Bai Goanna asked next.

“Yes,” I said happily.

“What’s your idea of lots?” asked Shri Husband.

“Yeah,” said Bai Goanna taking his side. “Not as much as Vijay Mallya, no?”

“But,” I wanted to say, “Mallya didn’t make his millions by eating solar-cooked food.” Instead I kept quiet. My life is a world apart from his. For some strange reason, my limited income is meticulously tracked by the government. And unlike those of his ilk, I do believe that, come summer, if I use natural energy I will save on bills and help the planet in some small, indirect way.

Welcome, summer.

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Of Numbers, Meditation and Other Boggling Stuff.

          Shri Husband and I are not talking to each other again. The silence is cold, not cool, not at all suited for a Sunday approaching summer. The quarrel has nothing to do with either of us, but is related to an event that took place in faraway Delhi last week, the World Culture Festival.

It began when I asked just how much 35 lakh is. “Rupees? Grains of rice? What?” was Shri Husband’s back-question.

“People,” I said.

“Why do you want to know that?” was the counter-question. Shri Husband dislikes answering in the first go.

“Those many people are to gather in one place in or near Delhi,” I informed him, “for a world culture festival.”

“Culture,” Shri Husband said, going directly into lecture-baazi mode, “Includes what you eat, wear and talk, how you sit, stand and behave with elders/ strangers, the rituals you follow, the geography and history of where you live, where your ancestors have lived… so what’s a world culture?”

I thought to myself, he loves the sound of his voice.

“Culture,” he droned on, “varies from neighbourhood to communities. Every profession has its own culture, see? Bankers dress, talk and behave differently from soldiers. Doctors and architects, auditors and plumbers have a few cultural similarities. A few. Hotel managers, a-c technicians, train-drivers, cameramen, window-dressers, sports’ coaches, all have their individual cultures. See? Take cities: Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, all have distinct cultures. See?”

Actually I didn’t, but when I don’t, I pretend to agree anyway to keep arguments brief. I nodded a ‘yes’.

Changing approach, I added: “Environmental experts are saying there will be damage to the flood plains of the river which is the venue because of 35 lakh people being there.”

Shri Husband supposed that any place that had 35 lakh people in one place would cause damage of some sort. Maybe. But, he said, further changing the approach I had changed, that he was more worried about the cows in his own neighbourhood eating polythene bags instead of grass and we drinking the milk they provided. “I’m worried about the air I breathe and the water I drink right here, not so much about what’s happening thousands of kilometres away.”

Returning to my original question, I asked: “How much is 35 lakhs?”

“Considering your maths-challenged status, as reflected in your school report cards year after year, don’t bother to figure that out.” Something in those words sounded impertinent; I have a tendency to bash on regardless when somebody talks about my disability to count.

“Tell me, tell, tell,” I urged, “how much is it?”

Slowly, Shri Husband said, “Thirty-five. One more zero, three hundred and fifty. Another zero, three thousand five hundred, another zero, thirty-five thousand…”

That’s when the quarrel really warmed up. Or the cold-silence period began. Because I got a feeling he was being sarcastic and said so. He admitted that he was and pleased that I detected it.

“Control your anger,” he said. “Try meditating. Deep breathing. Staying still. Thinking positive thoughts. Dispelling negativity.”

Look who’s talking, I thought to myself.

Bai Goanna witnessed what was happening and said it was a very big deal to have so many people singing and dancing and the spectators also came from different places.

“Thirty-five lakh different places?” I asked. Naively, actually, but that made things worse. Shri Husband barked: “Don’t be silly.” At times he says I won’t learn unless I ask questions. If I do ask a question, it’s silly. Why do I always have to be the loser?

Bai Goanna figured something wasn’t ok between us, so she advised us to meditate. She’s got a certificate to teach how to change oneself, one’s attitude to situations, how to handle what destiny dishes out, etc. “Take deep breaths, one count inhale, two counts out, then two counts inhale, hold for one count, exhale, sit straight, cross-legged, hands up, elbows out, put your fingers on your nostrils, not those fingers, hum like a bee, loudly-loudly, recite the name of your favourite god a hundred and so many times...”

Her lessons on meditation make me wonder why/how people pay her to de-stress. To me, it’s quite bewildering. “Calm down, smile from the inside, think of nice things, feel the cheer flowing through you, look into the eyes of the person next to you, tell him/her your deepest secrets…” not my scene, but to each their own. I prefer a hearty laugh at a stupid joke, a sweaty slog at gardening or practicing a recipe to sitting cross-legged in loose clothes with a bunch of like-minded persons chanting/singing together in the outer room of someone’s house. I don’t mind the post-satsang snacks and gossip. Once she said: “It’s ok if you drink liquor/smoke cigarettes, but better if you don’t.” Strangely worded advice. It’s like saying it’s ok if you don’t pay taxes, but better if you do. I confess, my philosophy-comprehension quotient is low. Bai Goanna’s better equipped to talk about things vague.

“When we meditate or pray together,” she pontificated, “the vibrations, the energy, causes miraculous things to happen.”

“If,” I asked, truly curious, “if 35 lakh people exhaled together, say in one gigantic sneeze, would it cause abnormal air currents?”

“I don’t know” would have been a decent and proper reply. Instead, Shri Husband – who wasn’t even part of this bit of the conversation-- went off on a tangent and talked about the scale of traffic to be handled, the deployment of cops to prevent and handle crime, the disposal of the garbage generated. Now my mind wandered, thinking about just how many people were required to cause traffic jams.

With 35 lakh people, how many taxi-owners, bottled-water distributors, anti-headache-tablet sellers, chai-samosa-walas would have benefited is something I for one can’t calculate. I’m dwelling on that boggling thought whilst there’s uneasy peace in the house.

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