The aroma of freshly prepared Mutter Paneer was filling every nook and
corner of my tiny little kitchen, and I assumed
to the living room too, because there was my younger one screaming, ‘”Mom, that
smells great, can we start lunch?”
To that I rolled my eyes, since an hour had not
passed since his last meal. I shouted
back, “It needs to rest for some time, so please wait”. I noticed amused responses from my husband
and my elder son, as to what gibberish I was talking. “What?? It needs to
rest? What needs to rest?”
I retorted, “The flavors will get enhanced and
the dish would taste better and different if we give it some time to rest “. I was sure all cookery bloggers would agree
with me, since I found that resting time of the dish is very important in
cooking. My team at home asked me if I was
watching any cookery shows recently for deducing this aspect of cooking, to
which I replied a strong affirmative “NO”, and that this I learnt through firsthand
experience.
I have realized that the word RESTING is a very
important and a significant verb, in our daily life, may it be resting after a
hard day’s work for the body to recuperate, or differences in relationships, or
our professional and creative zones.
Even nature has also has its own way of
resting. When you see a flower blooming, it takes its own time to reveal its
beauty, Mother Nature has always presented herself lazily, happily and lovingly.
Somehow time has its own significance in the
agenda of life. We usually bless the souls of our departed loved ones to rest
in peace, but we do not realize that to have a final peaceful resting
destination it is very important to be at peace and have clarity in our actions
in our daily grind.
Being a very reactive person myself, this clarity
of resting came to me by mundane tasks
like cooking, which bring home the fact that even simple chores we do in our
day to day life have a great importance in the development of our personality.
We often
indulge in practices like meditation to bring our restless minds to rest, but
it is seldom realized that many a times in this practice, we force ourselves to rest. Resting should
be effortless, just like water, which does not need the effort to flow. That’s its
nature. To be at rest, is to be in Zen.
I think I have rested enough, and it is now time
to serve my Mutter Paneer. “Come on
boys, time to eat, enough resting!”
