How to be Atmanirbhar(self reliant) at home

Finally the lockdown is coming to an end, though not the increase in new covid cases. Many of you would have to return to office to work and have to forego the safety of working from home.

Many of you would have to start to re-employ your domestic helps to help in your household chores and in cooking. But do we really have enough trust in doing so? Are we exposing our loved ones unnecessarily - especially for people who have aged parents, young children, pregnant women, or people with existing ailments who are supposedly in the high risk category? We still have the lingering doubts in our minds to think of opening our doors to infections. (Please note I am not discussing nannies and care givers here. 

These I presume are usually trained well enough to maintain highest degree of hygiene.)

But if we have to go back to office, not getting help from domestic helps is not an option for many of us. Given the situation, how can we avoid that- how can we become “Atmanirbhar” – self reliant and self sufficient at home. Is it even possible?

Thankfully, it  is – with some planning and smart working.

All of us have our basic necessities which need to be met whatever the situation is – food, clothing,and shelter, our roti, kapda aur makhan. If any one of them has to be compromised, our lives get jeopardized. In this post, I am going to discuss about two of the necessities – the food and shelter. Clothing – I am going by the presumption that we don’t require to acquire immediately and in near future(at least for next couple of months). 

Even if we do, I guess those can be ordered online and can be quarantined for couple of days before actual usage.

Now let us talk about food :

To have a meal on our table involves three aspects – acquiring raw material, preparation and cleaning up.

Let’s address one by one – we usually don’t take help in step 1 – we generally buy our raw materials like vegetables, fruits and grocery either from shops or order online.

By now, I presume many of us have already mastered the art of correctly cleaning and storing the vegetables and fruits. For the benefit of those of you who don’t – for perishables like fruits and vegetables, wash them in water with baking soda/salt to disinfect them. The outer packaging of groceries should be discarded immediately after transferring the contents to the containers at home. Ensure you wash your hands and clean the surface where the packages were places after transferring them

For step 2, some of us employ cooks – to prep (by this I mean cleaning,chopping,soaking, grinding) and prepare food.  How can we become self reliant on that – all it requires is a little planning and the right tools and equipment.

   

      1.  Make a meal plan for the week and acquire the required materials for the same.

     2. Clean, chop and store the vegetables in the refrigerator in separate packs. You can invest in a good food processor to ease up the process. My food processor helps me to knead atta, chop and shred vegetables, make idli-dosa batter, make juices, grind masala etc. It saves time and I can process them in bulk and store them in refrigerator for couple of days. For example, I make idli dosa batter , shred and store coconut, knead atta once a week. I also peel garlic(sometimes I buy already peeled garlic, when I am making garlic heavy recipes), separate mint leaves and other regular greens like fenugreek and spinach once  a week and use them throughout the week.

 3.  Have a few easy days where you can have simple breakfast like oatmeal, cornflakes with milk, sandwich, sprouts or just fruits which require very little preparation. Other days you can choose to have simple breakfast like idli, dosa, upma, pongal, poha , Poori/parata etc.

     4. Plan simple lunch menu which requires less time. My every day lunch would include rice, one vegetable side dish and papad/fryums. If it is not some kind of variety rice(like puligore, pulav, biryani, fried rice, mint rice, tomato rice, lemon rice), I have one of dal, sambhar, rasam,dalma to mix with rice.For side dish I have one vegetable dish like okhra, broad beans, potato,any variety of gourd, carrots, beans etc. I ensure to have at least two varieties of greens every week(usually fenugreek and spinach)

 5. If you are not very much particular on variety, you can have go easy on elaborate dinner preparations as well. My weekly dinner would be idli/ dosa for 3 days, roti for 2 days , 1 day wheat dosa, 1 day besan chilla, along with sambhar different types of lentil/gram curries, vegetable curries or paneer.

 6. Store some ready to eat stuff to cater to hunger pangs like pop corn, Makhana, cheese, rusk etc.

Now coming to the most difficult part(at least for me) - cleaning up. Invest in a dishwasher – believe me, it makes your life so much easier, even if you have domestic help. There will be no breakages of crockery and glassware with your dishwasher, you can get squeaky clean and dry utensils and you would take away your dependency on your domestic help. It is an investment which I don’t regret.

Coming to the cleaning of counter top and stove after cooking – for this you have to ensure that you exercise caution to not mess it up much in the first place. Like for example placing the peels and vegetable remains in a separate bin immediately after chopping, using a spoon rest and ensuring lesser accidental spills.Just a wipe after cooking, should clean up the space if you are careful.

Now let us see how to manage the shelter part of necessities - by which I mean dusting, cleaning and mopping.

Dusting – I don’t see an alternative, other than to manually dust. I know some of you might suggest a hand held vacuum cleaner – I find it cumbersome. I prefer the old fashioned duster and dusting cloth, may be with some cleaning solution. For this step, I apply the divide and conquer phenomenon, to dust and clean one part of the house each day, so that the whole chore will not look daunting. Having a clutter free home helps expedite the process. I don’t prefer to have too many decor objects at home in order to complete dusting faster. Have decor which you can maintain. Others, pack it up and put it away for better times( like when you can safely have your help back). Have pools/stations, where you can place similar items on a tray, which can ease -up wiping and dusting. For example, place your center table decor on a tray, TV remotes and  mobile chargers in a box/tray, Oils and seasonings in the kitchen in a tray, so that it becomes easy to move one tray instead of many smaller objects while cleaning.Using washable  table cloth and place-mats on dining table helps avoid dusting of the same. After use , you just need throw it in the washing machine to clean it.

Cleaning and mopping : I can almost hear many of you whispering vacuum cleaner again. But from my experience, vacuuming is more cumbersome than actual manual sweeping. You have to cover every inch of the space with your vacuum cleaner to clean. Moreover, it does not mop. Thankfully, we live in times of the robot cleaners, which go about sweeping and mopping all by themselves. The good and funny part is, unlike vacuum cleaners, they go and plug themselves in the charging point to charge themselves after their juice runs out. So my next investment suggestion to be self reliant at home is – robot cleaner.

A good food processor, dishwasher and robot cleaner- these three gifts of technology shall help us to stay atmanirbhar (self reliant)

Please share your views in comments what else good be done to atmanirbhar at home.