Milk of human kindness.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s cruel to be kind sometimes. No joking. I was reminded of it in the last ten minutes or so when I was back to the bad old days of boiling pasteurized Aarey milk packed in plastic bags as I had described earlier. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/neo-luddite-relents-sheepishly-shame.html. First, I had to find the milk boiler from where it had been stashed away. Next, I had to clean it and pour the milk in it. A couple of minutes after I had put it to boil and gone to the sitting room to start the PC, I was suddenly seized with high anxiety about whether the milk boiler had sufficient water in it. So I ran back to the kitchen, put off the gas burner, took the milk boiler off it, poured the half boiled milk into a pot and proceeded to top up the water level. Then, I had to pour the milk back into the milk boiler and bring it to a boil all over again. See what I mean? And, just in case you’re wondering where the worrisome pasteurized milk came from, it was all out of the unexpected kindness of strangers, as they say. In this case, the stranger happened to be a neighbour who had overstocked Aarey milk without a thought for the annual family visit to Goa for the Ganapati festival. The rest of the story you know. End of bitching at least for now.

A neo-Luddite relents. Sheepishly. Shame-facedly.

A confirmed neo-Luddite, I've been ranting and raving about the near impossibility of progress ever happening. The scales, as Bertie Wooster used to say, have finally fallen from my eyes. One everyday product I've started using of late promises real advancement: homogenised milk in a carton. It frees me from a lot of hassles. No boiling the milk every morning. No removing and storing the cream on top. No washing the boiling pot. No changing and washing the milk container. Storing space in the fridge saved. Cooking gas saved. Pour as much milk as you need straight from the carton. Throw it - the carton, not the milk - away once it's over. Sheer bliss! Hope Captain Murphy doesn't get into the act, though. Cross my fingers and toes for that.