my grand-ma

 

Her main work was managing of the milk. She used to put the milk in the earthen pot (called kadhauni) in the morning and put it in the small window hearth covered with a door of wooden flats so that the air and the smoke could pass through and the milk could be saved from the cats. She used to put this milk pot for boiling on the smirking heat of the dung in the morning for the whole day. Thick ‘malai’ used to come on it and milk used to become pinkish by the evening. She would never allow anybody to take this milk. She would curd this milk at night and early in the morning when everybody was asleep she would churn this curd with long heavy wooden beater (madhani) tied with cotton  rope on a wooden stand in a clay pot called  ‘Bilauni’ with her  both hands till the butter began to swim on the ‘lassi’.  She would take the butter out of it and put it in a separate pot and ‘lassi/chach’ (curd milk without butter) in a separate pot.

The ‘lassi/chach’ was served during the day, the butter was mainly used for the chapattis but fresh butter with ‘basi’ (stale) ‘roti’ and ‘chach’ was served in the morning which was part of breakfast. The unused butter was converted into Ghee by heating it and this ghee was used in pulses and vegetable for dinner and lunch. My dadii’s work was almost over by then but she some times used to make chapattis during the day otherwise this job was done my chachis (aunts). My dadi used to wear a ‘daman’ (a piece of cotton cloth used as single dhoti) in place of ‘salwar’ at home. There was complete unity in the family. I never found them quarrelling or simmering.

"For though we love both the truth and our friends,

piety requires us to honor the truth first."Aristotal

xoxo