Rocket science in the household

When our mothers kept their homes running smoothly and the inmates fed, clothed and cared for, we took it completely for granted. We thought that it was child's play, that anyone could do it. After all, Mum did not seem to break a sweat as she went through the motions, and let's face it, Mum was "just a housewife", she had not gone for higher studies, she did not have our several postgraduate degrees, or our experience in the workforce.

So if she could run such a comfortable home in the days when even running water and electricity were not to be taken for granted, how much better we would be at it!

It would be a mere snap of the fingers for our generation with all the time saving gadgets and other high tech state-of-the-art help we have, wouldn't it?

That is what I believed before I actually got into the act. When I did, suddenly, home-making took on the proportions of a mega-task that did not seem to end.

True, microwaves, ready-made batters and cut meat and vegetables on supermarket shelves had cut down food preparation time and I could have a marathon cooking session once a month when in the mood - but would you believe it, people still had to eat three times a day and carry their lunch to school and to the office?

And if you thought washing machines took all the work out of washing clothes, you are obviously one of those who has never had to fold the clean clothes and put them away.

You name the gadget, there is a catch to its competence. As my household grew, I found that cleaning jobs did not seem to have become easier despite the many discoveries made by mankind.

Newspapers and books that are thrown on the couch, believe it or not, have to be put away by human hands, iced water gets that way only if someone puts bottles of water in the refrigerator, food gets preserved only if you put it away in time.

I began to wonder if all these tedious tasks had reached the level of rocket science that they could not be understood and undertaken by anyone and everyone in the home.

Ask a normal teenager or pre-teen to return the dish of half-eaten ice cream to the freezer instead of letting it become a puddle on the kitchen counter, to fill that half-empty bottle of water, or clear the line of the clothes you have washed and you will hear a string of imaginative excuses - they didn't know that a frozen dessert needed to stay in the freezer to remain frozen or that something that looked empty was actually empty and needed to be filled, or that the folding of a shirt was akin to a complex geometrical theorem.

Is it rocket science? Can only the chosen few fit that last dish of leftovers into the freezer, or bring the food to room temperature instead of just nuking it directly from its frozen state, or know to keep the lid on the rice to prevent it from getting dry under the fan?

Then suddenly it was all over. The house was practically empty. Nothing got messed up, nothing needed to be cleared. But in another home in another town, a new brand of household rules was starting.

This needs to be shut, that needs to be open - and when I express an inability to get it right because I've never done that in my own home, I have the gauntlet tossed back at me.

"It's not rocket science, Mum, you can surely learn that much!"

- Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.