2020 was a life-changing year for all of us. It impacted us in ways beyond our imagination and understanding. But for me, this year had a silver lining – it was a year of self-discovery that led me to explore new roads and help me uncover the new me. Today, as I look back, it gives me immense joy and a sense of pride as I share with you my journey of challenging my own disbelief, and overcoming it to incept and nurture my newest baby – MACHA , that too in the most turbulent year of my life.
With a lot of leisure time in hand imposed by the lockdown, like everybody, me and my family also started indulging in different cooking and DIY adventures at home. While on one side we were trying newer recipes , what also kept running at the back of my mind was the health and wellness of all my family members, since again going out to follow our fitness regime and burning those extra calories had come to a stand-still for the time being. Meanwhile, with the onset of summers, my 11-year old first born Advit, who had been facing skin issues in summers for the past years, started to again get rashes and related skin problems. Not wanting to frequent our doctor’s clinic for small issues like these, I started to do a read a lot on skin ailments and the underlying factors leading to these.
As I went through different articles and blogs, I realized that one’s gut health plays a big role in the well-being of other organs and systems in our body. Eating fibrous vegetables, fruits and nutritious sprouts and drinking enough water was the key but unfortunately, like most other kids, Advit too did not enjoy these healthy foods and always looked for ways to escape eating them. That lead me to read more about natural probiotics and ferments and how and in which form I could give it to him to improve his gut health and the related skin ailments arising out of its dysfunction. As I started trying my hands at different recipes such as sour dough and rice kanji, I happened to casually read about Komboocha and its benefits as a probiotic and thought of brewing it at home as an experiment. Surprisingly, Advit accepted it happily and started asking for it more.
As I kept going, I started serving it to the few friends and neighbors who came home, and they helped me make those small improvements in the drink to make it more appetible. Meanwhile, Advit’s gut health also improved and I too started experiencing the instant detoxifier effects of the drink on my body as it reduced my bloating and started making me feel lighter. Diwali was approaching by now and I started to work on further improving the drink by adding different flavors and adding more taste to it. As I thoughtfully served it as a drink option to the guests coming in during the festivities, a lot of positive reviews about its taste and effects started coming in. By now I had started enjoying this new journey of experimentation and adventure of mine, and the good reviews and positive words of friends and family, further boosted my confidence to further expand my horizons and make it bigger.
Reminiscing the whole journey of getting the first mother scoby, to having those initial doubts about the correctness of the outcome after a wait of almost 30-40 days, to getting the results reaffirmed through YouTube videos and to finally going for subsequent ferments and batches and flavors and more flavors, I think, I have eventually got my true calling and met the new me – the happy, contented and enriched ME.
In the closing, I would just like to say….the journey’s just begun….there’s a long way to go and I cant wait to take on the new adventures and learnings as I embrace this new path with a heart full of confidence, conviction and gratefulness for my strongest pillar of support – my family and friends…
To all the good times ahead…