A Simple Life

My apartment was locked up for most part of 4 months while we traveled on work and otherwise....each time i got back i had this eerie feeling that someone was in the house when we weren't.....that feeling didn't go away....it was roaches!! first they were few, then they came forward and multiplied....pretty soon, when the cutlery drawer was opened, or any other cabinet, they'd run for their life...i tried it all, laxman rekha, hit and all other kinds of repellers, but them roaches just didn't give up......its a very disgusting sight and thought and so in came the pest control guys...the effect was almost immediate.....I'd have a grin on my face when the maid would give me an approximation of the damages each morning after she swept the house......it got me thinking about how my mom managed without an AMC with a pest control company......we didn't have fancy cabinetry....we had what we called the 'meat safe' which was a wooden cupboard with the doors made of mesh for ventilation.....the cooked food, groceries etc were kept in this......(we grew up with cats as pets, so preferred not to tempt the darlings with milk and other goodies kept on the counter) ......there was a simple yet effective way of keeping ants, roaches etc out of the meatsafe......each leg was placed it a little plastic bowl which always had water in it.....if that dried up, you were sure to find a trail of ants in your food......most of my memories are of the kitchen......once the formality of breaking the ice was done with, everyone - friends, relatives etc were invited to sit in the kitchen while my mom finished cooking........we had a huge dining cum kitchen......now they have fancy names for it....its called an 'open kitchen' back then when my mom bought herself a 4 burner stove with oven and grill that looked like a fridge and realised that to fit it into the existing kitchen the slab would have to be cut, she just placed it adjacent to the L shaped counter and made it into an island kitchen!! added a wooden rack and she had additional work space.....it worked for a quarter of a century...i remember how i agonized was when the designing of my 'modular kitchen' was happening.........we had a black mud pot for water (my parents refused to drink fridge water) it was a uniquely porous pot that dripped water...used condensation to keep the water cool....the water that dripped was collected in a dish at the base and the dogs and cats would drink only from here........all this makes me marvel at how uncomplicated it all was.......today with gadgets and gizmos, we still are running against time......mom always says...the more options you have, making a choice becomes that much more difficult......so true...