Opinion - A FEW hours before settling down to write the column, I had a go at making rotis.
If my culinary coup was for a school test, the teacher’s comment would have been: a good attempt but more practise is required.
Personally, I was satisfied in parts. Some rotis were nicely round. And then some were shaped like Africa. Some were soft and flaky. A few were so hard that with hardware shops closed during the lockdown, my roti would have worked well as an angle grinder disc.
I have realised that making perfectly circular rotis comes with lots of practise.
Google tells me that some of my rotis became hard because they were left too long to cook on one side before turning. Also, the rotis should have been covered as they were being made because the steam helps to keep the rotis soft.
The previous time I tried my hands at making rotis was about 20 years ago. I don’t think I need to grasp all the tips for making soft, flaky rotis. Who knows where I will be in another 20 years?
And in any case, when the lockdown is over, Pushkar Maharaj and his son, Ravi, of Indian Delights in Overport will resume supplying me with fresh, soft rotis every week, saving me being pilloried and ridiculed by the senior and junior master chefs in my household for making, what they call, frisbees.
This is the fourth-consecutive column being written during the coronavirus scourge in this country. And with the media devoting wall-to-wall coverage to Covid-19, it would
be remiss of me to buck the trend and take my mind away from the upshots of the
deadly disease.
I am tired of soaking up at least 16 hours of the facts and figures around the virus on television. In between, I am bombarded with medical misinformation and fake cures on WhatsApp. Often the misinformation is purportedly from a prominent doctor or a friend of a friend who works in the government.
With people not leaving home during the lockdown, concerns about bread shortages through panic buying and even bakeries being shut after workers tested positive for the coronavirus, is it any wonder then that everybody has been baking bread over the past few weeks? Or that even I tried to make my own rotis?
Flour - of every type and packaging size - has been selling like hotcakes (pun unintended). My supermarket shelves have been cleared of hundreds of sachets of dry baking yeast daily. I will be surprised if even one sachet a week was being bought in the years BC (Before Covid-19).
Undoubtedly, we will see new consumption trends in the future, even after all restrictions have been lifted. The unexpected outbreak has changed grocery-buying habits. Whereas online buying was more the preserve of well-heeled, lazy housewives who did not want to be seen mixing with the proletariat, I can see many more people opting to continue using online platforms to maintain social distancing.
Nobody can say when the virus will be eradicated.
While plans for recovery are being laid out, with a focus on the financial stimulus needed to help economies recuperate, there is a concomitant change to recalibrate societal values and provide a more sustainable underpinning for the future.
The crisis offers the opportunity to set the world on a more sustainable and equal path. The lockdown has shown we can live without cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, fast foods and other non-essentials.
Staying home has forced many people to reignite their love for cooking and gardening. New vistas have been unveiled, waiting to be captured on the canvas of life.
With churches, mosques and temples being closed, we learnt we can pray just as devotedly from home. While greedy,
money-grabbing temple priests are feeling the pinch as gullible congregants are under house arrest, we learnt that the real priests are those in white coats in hospitals, working to save lives.
A minute virus running amok has reminded us of who we really are. It has taught us humility and that everything will come to an end. And by doing so, it teaches us to be grateful for all the living moments we have and all the things we can enjoy.
During the lockdown, I have had to miss attending several funerals. People I had known for a long time and with whom I enjoyed a close relationship had passed away. The lockdown rules forbid large numbers of mourners.
Is it not time we reassess the meaning we place on funerals that have been related to non-event status? And at the same time shouldn’t we also revisit the needless splurging? I am chronically critical of the obscene amounts spent on funerals - solid oak American-style caskets, hearses with gullwing doors, bagpipers, décor artists, white doves, high-priced singers and lavish after-tears catering.
Until mid-March, the Clare Estate Crematorium was prone to taking on a carnival atmosphere over weekends when thousands converged for funerals, with each one trying to outdo the next. The microscopic coronavirus put a stop to all the tamasha by ensuring that only a handful of mourners can attend each simple funeral lasting no more than
30 minutes.
With the stripping of all the pomp and ceremony that traditionally attended funerals, it is opportune to consider that quality time spent with a person while alive is far more important than the last rites when he or she is no more.
Working from home during the past month has been a beautiful thing for me, promoting greater work-life balance. I have been more productive - even while keeping an ear on the TV. There has been no running from appointment to appointment. And I managed to put in a solid eight to 10 hours of work daily, in between breaking for hot home-cooked lunches and snacks.
While the coronavirus outbreak is not something we should be acclaiming, an unexpected beneficiary has been Mother Earth. For too long we have been cruel and callous, causing the extinction of thousands of species of animals and plants. Think climate change. Now, a tiny virus is giving us a taste of our own medicine.
Major cities across the world have registered significant drops in air pollution during lockdown. Nature has been renewing and rejuvenating itself. Hopefully, going forward, we will be kinder to the planet we live on. Let’s not see this virus only for the negative. We must look beyond that - value systems have been readjusted; relationships have strengthened, and crass materialism has been exposed for the sham it is.
This too shall pass. There is no rainbow without the rain. And after rain comes sunshine. But remember, we will not get back to normal - because normal was the problem in the first place.