Beginnings

   

           Born into a traditional marwari family, married at 18, a graduate at 21 

 a mother at 22, and again at 30, full time parenting for the next six years,  back to college at 39. 

where do i begin the blog from. ideally we all start from where we came from what we did etc.. like i did too, but i think i should write about what i am doing now,  what i think i will be doing a few months and years from now. 

 At 39 i have started college again. it has been three months  since i enrolled into the food and nutrition certificate course in sophia college and it has blown my mind. what a revelation! so many myths busted, so many beliefs or i should say misbeliefs clarified and pure science is now  leading me on. how i, a commerce student, landed up on this course was so smooth a choice, that i have begun to believe that everything has a time and place in our lives. 

let me start with my foray into the course.

for 19 yrs of my married life i so had my hands full that there was no time to think about the future.  when i had to assess the skills i learnt in the past few years i would say i learnt to cook, keep babies, partake care to old people and keep house. the skills acquired in the past few years were that of a housekeeper, governess, cook and manager. no dont get me wrong i am not belittling myself . like everyone who diembarks on a career path in youth sits back in middle age to think about the time spent and the skills acquired. this was my career and these were the skills i developed because of the kind of work i did. 

with the kids into full day school i found myself free for the day and the search to do something began... well what could i do? where could i fit myself in? i encountered walls everywhere. what kind of a resume could i make, what kind of a job should i apply for? what would hold my interest if i were to sit in a 9-5 job. being the master of my time for so many years, the idea of beoing governed by some body else made me cringe. i realised that somebody would govern me only if somebody hired me. why would anybody hire me? 

to study and acquire knowledge that could be used in the real job market seemed the next logical step. well! what do i study? during this time i read an interesting book by muhammed yunus ' banker to the poor" in his book muhammed emphasied the need of empowering the poor by building on their already existing skills instead of sending them for new and completely out of context ( of their current scenarios) education programmes. the book as well as this thought made a  deep impression on my mind. i started to enumerate my skills in order of my preferences. cooking topped the list. cutting and chopping vegetables was thereaupatic and calming to my mind and i always on the look out for healthy and different cooking methods. cooking gave me pleasure. how does one make a career out of cooking? catering, teaching, writing a book  of recipes.? none of this appealed to me and it got me thinking that despite cooking so much i had no experience with baking. a confectionary and baking course looked good. so i looked up the website of sophia and there it was. along with these courses there also was the food and nutrition course. it was a science based 10 month certificate course. now this was really interesting, even more than the baking course.  without thinking much i signed up. i thought to my self "lets see how dedicated am i?" so began a thrilling journey of discovery, self discovery, of learning, of exams and of starting all over again.