The New Bride and Her Shopping List

Hello friends, hope you all are safe and healthy, by the grace of God. Currently this is the best, one could wish for! I’m trying my best to distract myself and to an extent, you too, from the present state of affairs. In this effort I’m gonna tell you the the trial and triumphs of the novice, twenty something bride, about whom I have narrated to you, previously.

To refresh it, I must tell you that this bride belongs to middle of 1990 ‘s and basically she had no prior knowledge of how a household is run. She had the notion that she would cross the bridge, when she eventually came to it, why bother before hand! So she blithely bypassed her mom’s repeated advices and admonishing, as she absent-mindedly nodded to her sermons, while her whole attention was towards the book in her hand at that time. She was a bookworm, remember, and used to devour them as food.

Now, you may be wondering, how come she consented to marry so early. A couple of reasons swayed her, the first one, her maternal grandmother gave her an important life lesson that “don’t interfere with what destiny has marked for you”. The second one was that, the would be bridegroom had literally swept her off her feet!!

So, our new bride embraced domesticity thinking it as no big deal! But soon she found out that it wasn’t a cake walk as she had presumed. After averting a stumble in employing a housemaid on the very first morning, as I described earlier, the next assignment came in the form of making a list and buying the monthly grocery. Her hubby dear told her that very evening they would go for shopping and she must make a list before hand fot the same.

With great concentration and deliberation she prepared a list.That evening she found herself standing at a ‘kiraana store'(small grocery store, where helping hands will pack the things in the list for the customer), evidently ruing her assertion to her husband that she could take care of it all by herself. He had dropped her there and went on to buy the green grocery and other stuff. When her turn came, the helping hand looked askance at her, gathering all her self confidence, she began, with the list in her hand.

She uttered, “tea”. The enquiry came in an indifferent voice, ” dust, small leaf, big leaf?” She had no idea which was good and randomly chose one of them. He then asked” Which pack, 100, 250 or 500 gm?” She uncertainly chose one of them. Then came biscuit, salted or sweet which brand? The sales person was getting impatient, rice, parboiled, small scented or Basmati and so on. The new bride felt as if facing a rapid fire round .

The puzzle became more complicated at the lentil(dals) section. He asked, ” which one?” Now the problem was, no multiple choice!! She looked at the array of lentils at the display shelf but failed to ascertain which one was what? Quite angry at herself for not paying heed to her mother, she indicated this, this and that! By now the exasperation of the helper was at tipping point when the gentle voice of the store owner intervened. The elderly man was watching the proceedings keenly and fairly understood her predicament. He then instructed his staff to leave the matter to him.

The new bride took a huge sigh of relief finding an ally in such unlikely quarters, whom then gently went on to introduce her to different varieties of lentils and which kind of tempering was required for each of them(as we Indians are very particular about the tempering used for the different types of dal).

When her husband eventually returned, saw with great wonder, the duo of sincere teacher and ardent desciple in rapt attention at one corner of rather busy store. By then, she had acquired a fair idea regarding the monthly ration for two people and other miscellaneous tidbits regarding running a household from the worldy wise man.

Friends, at the time when there was no handy telephone to ask mother or google for instant access to information, the know how she gained from her new teacher was an invaluable one!

Advertisement