CATCH THEM YOUNG !!

“Catch them young”  watch words to inculcate a sense of purpose and direction in the mind of young ones- So true and profound thoughts. What is sown in a young mind as a seed develops and grows in to a dream! May spread its wing and grow to glow!

Let me recall my own case. Being the eldest in the pack of four, I grew up in a middle class household where the level of aspiration inculcated in all of us was very high! Expectations of parents were very high. We are shown role models from actual living legends of our time.

Looking back after a span of thirty five years of working career, I found a small hobby of my mother which had shaped my vocation and thereby my occupation. When I was in school, we used to live in Nilgiris. As the place used to be far away from nearest town, Ooty, we used to get our provisions and supplies very late. Thus our supplies of Biscuits used to be erratic and after arrival we used to find them to be old, broken and of poor taste.

In a household with four growing children, biscuits and cookies used to be good items to indulge during snack breaks. Thus my mother, after a little deliberation chose to make cookies at home. Those were the days when the remote place in Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu did not have Gas supply to homes. We were not having any electrical oven to bake. Though electricity was available to cook that would not suffice the heavy need for baking. So with a tin smith who used to work in my father’s department a oven was designed by her. It had two decks. Sliding plates used to slide inside the oven on racks.  The oven was having a bottom portion to accommodate three fourth of an inch sand. The oven was placed on a burning coal bed and the lid of the oven was also having provision to spread burning coal so as to get uniform heating for the plates. There were four such plates. Two inside the oven undergoing baking and two ready with unbaked biscuits to get inside at any time.

We had great excitement on the first day as my mother would start baking that day. The whole backyard of the house was full of smoke due to burning of fire wood. The oven was pre heated and ready. My mother was busy kneading the dough as there was no electrical kneader. We were assigned the task of cutting shapes of biscuits using the lids of “Horlicks” bottle. Thus uniform round pieces of varying thickness were spread on the plates to go inside the oven.

Being the eldest, I was charged with the responsibility of “Quality control” that is to reject non-uniform pieces of wet biscuits. Later on seeing my good work mother assigned me additional responsibility of layering the trays uniformly, which till then she used to d meticulously to perfection!

When the first lot of cookie was out of the oven “wow” the euphoria in the household was palpable as the aroma that filled the smoky back yard is still vivid in my memory. There was the smell of Cardamom, as we did not have Vanilla we used freshly powdered Cardamom in the cookies. Despite a few burnt cookies the first attempt of my mom was a great hit! For the evening tea session my father had brought a few guests who were all praise for the cookies.

After a few mores sessions, my mother had perfected the process conditions like mixing time, quantum of water in the dough, thickness of dough sheet, spacing in the tray and baking time. As usual in our house hold I got the official privilege of being the TASTER, be it Puliyodharai (Tamarind Rice), Pongal or Cookies as my mother always had unassailable believe in my taste buds! I also fancied this role as I had learnt about the expertise of Tea Tasters and Ice-cream tasters. I loved that role.

What started as a hobby of my mother (which she later gave up on account of growing family demands and easy availability of various packed options!) became my profession for the past 35 long years! Each day is unique as no two products are the same!  Each batch is an enigma as dependence of human being in this industry is high, despite this product consistency is the hall mark!  Each product development is like giving birth to a baby- But not a day is boring as each day comes loaded with its own Challenges!!