Skip to main content

The Lockdown Story

 Covid-19 pandemic led to national lockdown and multiple government restrictions for the safety of the public. You would agree to the fact that many of us took this lockdown as an opportunity and learned new skills, and many of us would curse the period since they were forced to do things that they usually don't do.

As I mentioned in my previous blog that my roots belong to Bengal. My father visited by Grandfather's place in early March. And when it was time to return back to Mccluskiegunj, to us; national lockdown was imposed all over India. He was stuck there!

Weeks passed, we applied for travel passes for both West Bengal and Jharkhand to bring my Dad back to Gunj. None worked! We waited for a month, thinking some restrictions on travel may be reduced by the Government in the weeks to come. On the contrary, instead of reducing the restrictions, imposed lockdown extended for another month. And this process went on until, the unlock phases began.  

Meanwhile, we continued to use all means to get the passes permitted. I continuously met with the Circle Officer of the block, explained him the scenario and requested him to help me my father bring back. Undoubtedly, he was a genuine person, he gave me a pass and asked me to visit the DTO office. Very next day, I hired the car with the same number mentioned in the pass (due to  security checking) and left for Ranchi. That day I couldn't get the work done, they asked me to wait for some period of time. On the very next day, I rushed to Ranchi again, since the pass had a validity for few more days and got the passes, understood the process and asked my father to hire a vehicle take due permission from the authorities of West Bengal as well and leave early morning. Plans were set and we safely brought our Father back home.

As per the Government procedures, we kept him in home quarantine for 14 days and on the 15th day; fun episodes of lockdown began. Since the lockdown prevailed, we were all at home and performed Work from Home. Every evening once our office hours were office, we made a menu of cooking recipes that we have never cooked at home and schedule to cook for the next day.

Since we hail from Bengal, we started off with something sweet. So, the first thing that we cooked was Jalebis. Undoubtedly, we had huge fun while cooking that on a traditional cook stove (mitti ka chulha) but Jalebis didn't turn out to be, the Punjab Sweet House type. (It was not that crunchy and crispy).

And the best part out of it, we gave Jalebis to our neighbors for tasting those, since we tried it for the first time, we wanted to some honest reviews and suggestions.

Next on the table, was vegetable cutlet with ketchup and mustard sauce and we double coated the cutlet with bread crumbs to make it even more crunchier than the Jalebis. It turned out to be amazing. (P.S; Check that out in the picture).



So, with every dish that we cooked, we have a beautiful story attached to it. The fun, the small fights that I had with my little brother while choosing the best pieces of cutlet or Jalebis are worth memorable. And we will pass these beautiful memories of Lockdown to the next generation. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A short and sudden trip to Paris!

The weekend was about to start and I had another two days to explore. For the first day, I thought of visiting Antwerp and for the second day, I was a little confused between visiting Amsterdam again or visiting some other city. I decided to explore Paris- City of Love. Late evening I decided to board a Euro-Bus, take a six hour journey and reach Paris. As planned, I reached Paris around 1am in the night, and guess what I had no hotel bookings done, and as I said I had no international internet connectivity on my smart phone. Found a hotel near to the bus station, but  they were full. The main agenda of visiting Paris was to visit one of the seven wonders of the world- Eiffel Tower. So, I decided to walk down the street and reach to the Eiffel. On my way, I bought some souvenirs and found out that the shop owner  hailed from Pakistan. He directed me to board the bus number 7, the last bus to Eiffel Tower. Back in my mind, I thought I have so much time, why not walk and find my...

Belgian Chocolates: Neuhaus, Leonidas, The Chocolate Line...

 It was my second day at Antwerp . Fill with excitement and a competitive pressure, I walked down to the University of Antwerp . Direction to reach the class was well depicted on sign boards and A4 size posters. Since, it was the first day we were introduced to each other, introduced to my research guide, Mr.Ramon Pino. We were divided into team, and our team had a blend of Mexico, Switzerland and India, all of us belonged to different subject discipline. Since, in our selection form we shared same interest, i.e; Food; we were clubbed as a team and the research we were going to perform was on "Social Food Lab". My study at summer course and specially on the research provided me an extra angle to explore the culinary taste of Belgium. While interviewing the samples that we selected statistically, I visited few famous chocolatiers of Antwerp, like, "Neuhaus", "Leonidas" and "The Chocolate Line". After my classes were over, somewhere around 5 in the...

My first day at Antwerp, Belgium.

  Before boarding my flight, from Birsa Munda Airport ; I did quite an extensive research upon Antwerp. Historical places, stories behind them, best chocolatiers, best ice-cream parlors and many more. Amsterdam was fun but coming to Antwerp was the main agenda, since I was a part of the summer school course at University of Antwerp. I had one day at hand to explore Antwerp, since my classes were scheduled from the next day. Early morning, I went to the nearest big Mart, picked multigrain -bread, croissant , cherry tomato and hummus dips. I picked a regular cup of coffee went to the Antwerp Station, fetched a map in French and Dutch (Oh Gosh! Maps in English were out of stock). The person standing next to the Ticket vending machine asked me to go the board next to the exit gate, and click a photo of the map printed on the board. I genuinely wanted to hug him, he made my plans execute so easy. Since Antwerp is a small city, finding my way towards Antwerp Zoo was not difficult. Be...