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A Typical Child's Day |
Leisure |
Houses |
Transport and Communications
Attitudes and Values |
Everyday Food |
Special Occasion Food
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| About 6.00 a.m. | Wake up, wash, brush teeth |
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| About 7.00 a.m. | Breakfast - tea and roti |
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| 8.00 a.m. | Go to school |
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| 12.00 p.m. | Home from school - chores like washing dishes or
cleaning the house (for girls) or looking after
animals (for boys)
Lunch - roti or rice with vegetable curry
and buttermilk |
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| About 2.00 p.m. | Nap |
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| About 3.00 p.m. | Wake up; drink tea; chores; study |
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| About 6.00 p.m. | Play with friends (not every day) or study |
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| About 8.00 p.m. | Dinner |
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| About 9.00 p.m. | Bed-time |
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Children make their own toys, like these intricate trucks that Rashik makes out of scraps of wood and metal. |
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A typical family's home compound.
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Houses in the area where Maya Ben, Rashik, Tara Ben and Navin live are usually made from bricks, concrete and wood, with clay tiles on the roof. Almost all the houses in the villages fell down during the earthquake. Until they can build new brick houses, families are living in tents or in temporary shelters made from corrugated iron.
Each house is set in a home compound, with an open area to sit, work or talk in, to keep animals or to grow vegetables.
The bus is a popular way to get from the village to Anjar.
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Some families have a motor bike or scooter, but most people walk, or catch a bus if it is a long way. For example, Bhagwanji and Dhiraj take the bus to their business in Anjar about 20 kilometres away. To carry big loads, people use a cart drawn by a pony or a camel. Some businesses have trucks, and the wealthier people in the cities have cars.
Most houses have electricity, and a few have a telephone. Maya and Rashik’s family have one, so Bhagwanji’s clients can call him.
Their Hindu religion plays a very important role in people’s lives. Every family has a shrine in their home. They also visit the temple, and celebrate Hindu festivals. There are rigid differences between the roles of men and women. Few families encourage their daughters to go to school, and many young girls get married early. Only the husband goes out to work - the wife cares for the children, runs the household and works in the fields.
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Most people eat chapatti with vegetables or green chilli and jaggery (molasses) for lunch with a glass of chhaas. For dinner they have khichadi with vegetables or chhaas.
CHAPPATI (Indian home made bread)
2 cups plain white flour
½ teaspoon salt | | 2 teaspoons oil
½ cup water or as required |
Rub the oil into the flour. Sprinkle over enough water to make a firm dough. Mix. Form the dough into 10 small balls, about the size of lemons. Roll out each ball until it is round and quite thin. Cook your chappati one at a time on a dry, hot griddle (tawa) or frying pan. Spread with butter and serve while still hot.
KHICHADI (Mixture of rice and dhal – Hotchpotch)
2 cups rice
1 tablespoon butter7 cups water
| | 1 cup dhal (red lentils)
3 teaspoons salt |
Wash the dhal and rice and soak them together for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the water and set it aside. Melt the butter, add the dhal-rice mixture and cook for one minute. Add the hot water and salt and stir well. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until the rice and dhal are both soft. Serve hot with butter.
CHHAAS (Spiced buttermilk)
2 cups plain yoghurt or buttermilk
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder
1 teaspoon finely chopped coriander leaves | | ½ teaspoon salt
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon green chilli and ginger paste
4 cups cold water |
Beat the yoghurt, add all other ingredients and mix well. Add the water and whisk well. Serve as a refreshing drink.
BATAKA NU SHAK (Spicy potatoes)
6 medium potatoes
1 teaspoon salt | | 1 teaspoon chilli powder
3 tablespoons butter |
Peel potatoes, wash and cut into thin long fingers about ½ cm thick. Heat the butter in a frying pan and stir-fry the potato chips until they are golden brown and cooked. Add chilli powder and salt and mix well. Serve with chappati or khichadi.
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For special occasions, people add extra spices to their food and make a special sweet dish, lapasi. They eat this as a first course, followed by two or three types of vegetables, chappati, chhaas, rice and dhal.
LAPASI
5 cups lapasi (sometimes called lapsi - whole-wheat granules, like large brown semolina, available in Indian food shops)
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons jaggery (molasses)
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the lapasi and cook, stirring all the time, until it turns brown. In another pot, boil the molasses with a cup of water to make a syrup. Add the syrup to the butter/lapasi mixture and stir well. Cook it on a low heat, stirring, until all the liquid disappears. Serve hot as a first course.
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