Light of the Lamp

 Hi friends, Disclaimer: My article may not be highly factual.        A wonderful new year to all of you.  This time, i would like to write a few words on the fairly new way of supplying cooking gas to the Indian households which is piped gas supply.  When my parents grew up in the post independence era, their families had to be content with laborious cooking on firewood or coal based hearths and kitchens which were blackened by the persistent smoke from the firewood. Slowly, the households in the cities started to use  the single burner, portable kerosene stoves. I am not fully clear about the expenses for these kerosene stoves, but we used to keep one kerosene stove, for which we used to buy kerosene from the ration shops. I still have the smell of the ' infamous kerosene ' in my nostrils when I write this here. 'Infamous ' because it is/or was the favourite fuel in the Indian movies to self immolate or pour on an unfortunate soul to burn them!! Maintaining a kerosene