Food fundamentalisms in India can be classified along regional lines. The North- South divide is becoming less and less pronounced among the younger generations who are born into a more cosmopolitan cuisine not just in the metros but even in the small towns and interiors. But older palates are still very picky. I can speak with a degree of authority only on South , esp. Mallu food fetishes, as I personally suffer from some of them.
The general love of rice and rice and more rice in its myriad avatars morphing into breakfast , lunch, tea time snacks , dinner & supper is the most important of them. In this passion , the annachis are also with us. Rice extremists wont have any truck with chappathi, porotta or any wheat / maida creations. In whichever part of the world they find themselves they will look for idli,dosa, uthappa as they are made in Palakkad , Coimbatore or the original Udipi or Mangalore – not the type served in Udipi restaurants in Mumbai which are mongrels ! They would also condemn any sambhar that does not taste like their traditional fried-ground coconut , coriander, chilli,onion plus, plus masala concoction !
I mention Palakkad specially because that is where the idli had reached perfection in the form of the famous Ramasseri idli, though nowadays Ramasseri idli has only the appearance. The melting in the mouth and the out of the world taste is just a memory. It is just business and material for TV cookery shows, now. But folks raised in PGT have a higher standard in the matter of idlis than others. My Valiettan used to even surmise that we – the typical Palghatties especially of our family, Kenath – were born out of a giant idli ! The same could be said of our Thekkan friends vis-a vis puttu and kappa or about the Vadakkans and their pathiri…Mention of pathiri does not merely cause a craving in me but also triggers memories of my hostel life at Providence College, Calicut.
Next to food, come clothes and personal appearance.
The attraction of jeans and tops and such western wear for young girls is seen as a threat to Indian culture by the traditional Indian male. Hence sartorial and related fundamentalisms about what women should wear. Many Mallu males, for instance, hate lipstick and what they call ‘ the painted look’, abhor the ‘off- shoulder ’ tops, spaghetti straps & short skirts . Their fantasies are only about long hair, oiled and adorned with jasmine , figures fully draped in sarees or ‘set mundus’, and faces fair, shy and coy ! Among women there are the silk fundamentalists – the Kanjeepuram ,Pochempalli ,Benares, Murshidabad types- and the cotton queens, collectors of handlooms from all over the country . They are quite snooty about their taste and look down upon all other females who don’t share their textile theology.
Among the young I notice a new fire for the olden, golden practices, the aggressive championing of what was just routine in ancient / not so ancient times, like Yoga, Ayurveda , organic farming and so on. Last week a Mumbai-raised youngster gave me a sermon on the allopathic evil and the superiority of our own systems of medicine But he doesn’t seem to have heard of Ashtangahridayam on which the preparation of the kashayam he showed me was based ! Home birthing , I think , is the latest female fundamentalism that is catching on. On Amrita TV , I happened to listen to a young mother waxing evangelical about it. Home birthing was the norm some forty/fifty years ago in India and hospitalization was the exception. But now it is coming back , in a more self conscious and sophisticated garb. Very much like organic farming. There was only natural manure and natural farming in the 40s and even the 50s. Chemical fertilizers and insecticides were seen as saviours by farmers , then. But now they stand exposed as the enemies of the good earth and her children . Hence organic farming. Old wines in new bottles. Going back to nature , to the fundamentals of life. Not a bad trend . The only catch is the new bottles are a bit too expensive.
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Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Fun-damentalisms - Part I
You may skip the following 3 paragraphs. They are just by the way , sharing with you, some historical funda I gathered recently on the explosive stuff. The rest of it is about the fun versions, like food fundamentalism for instance.
‘Osama was killed by the U.S.’, screamed newspaper headlines on a May morning ( 3rd , to be precise.) Agreed . But the Osama brand of fundamentalism which has now become somewhat synonymous with terrorism is and will be alive and kicking for God knows how long. I cant begin my next sentence with a ‘Believe it or not’. You have no choice but to believe it as it is very much a part of modern American history. Many of us Indians are in the dark about fundamentalism’s American connection, its American origins.
Religious fundamentalism was a late 19th , early 20th century Christian movement in the U.S., a theological battle against the modern scientific explanations of the origin of man as given by Charles Darwin. The term,‘fundamentalism’ was coined by its votaries to describe strict adherence to the Five Fundamentals of the Christian faith ,namely,
1. The Inspiration of the Bible by the Holy spirit and thanks to it the inerrancy of the Scripture. 2. The Virgin Birth of Christ 3. The belief that Christ’s death was the atonement for sin 4. The Bodily Resurrection of Christ & 5. The historical reality of Christ’s miracles.
Along similar lines , there are fundamentals which the very orthodox and right wing radicals of all other religions swear by. Hence, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish , Sikh , even Buddhist fundamentalisms. Embattled forms of spirituality as they are described, they can be both defensive and offensive. The extreme offensiveness has resulted in the formation of terror outfits that have become a nightmare not only for governments but also for you and me .
Far less offensive and much more interesting to reflect upon and categorise are the other orthodoxies which govern our lives. Foremost among them I would place food fundamentalism.. The broad division is into Veggies and Non veggies. The Veggies can be further classified into 3 fundamentalisms- Religion dictated, Caste dictated and Health oriented. The Jains obviously lead the Pack in the religious category. ‘Ahimsa paramo dharma’ is their credo. They wont shed the blood even of a white ant or a mosquito. Extreme herbivores , they avoid onions. No ban on milk though. Eggs are a no- no. Gujju shopkeepers don’t stock eggs. I wonder whether they know that market eggs generally are unfertilized eggs and therefore eating them doesn’t constitute himsa ( violence or killing ) of any prospective life.
Among Hindus , caste generally decides whether flesh , fish and fowl are eatable or not. The South Brahmins, in general, are vegetarian fundamentalists, the no-eggs, no-onion types. Filter coffee is integral to the Tambrahm life style and milk is integral to FC. So they can’t object to milk. But milk is an animal product . Drawing milk is like drawing blood ! This sub-class of veg. fundamentalism is an offshoot of animal rights activism, ahimsa’s close cousin. Long before Maneka Gandhi was born, saw a cow or a goat, Mahatma Gandhi had boycotted cow’s milk. Only extreme illness persuaded him to agree to take goat’s milk.
Obsession with health cuts across religion and caste barriers. Are humans meant by nature to be herbivores or carnivores ? The question has not been convincingly answered either way. But there is the general acceptance of the idea that somehow plant food is lighter , easier on the digestive system etc. So you have vegetarians by choice or by medical compulsion in all castes and communities.
Veg fundamentalists look down upon the Non Veggies , sniff & show disapproval of kitchens , dining rooms , homes, restaurants where non veg items are cooked , served , eaten…Some housing societies in Mumbai do not allow Non –Veg eaters to become members. Non Veg affianadoes use equally vehement retaliatory tactics. But they are mainly confined to words and attitudes. They pour utter scorn on their antagonists. Veggies are just vegetables in their eyes, incapable of human passion, action and high heroics. Just breathing corpses in other words ! Thus the bloodless war goes on between the carnivores and omnivores on the one side and the herbivores on the other.
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‘Osama was killed by the U.S.’, screamed newspaper headlines on a May morning ( 3rd , to be precise.) Agreed . But the Osama brand of fundamentalism which has now become somewhat synonymous with terrorism is and will be alive and kicking for God knows how long. I cant begin my next sentence with a ‘Believe it or not’. You have no choice but to believe it as it is very much a part of modern American history. Many of us Indians are in the dark about fundamentalism’s American connection, its American origins.
Religious fundamentalism was a late 19th , early 20th century Christian movement in the U.S., a theological battle against the modern scientific explanations of the origin of man as given by Charles Darwin. The term,‘fundamentalism’ was coined by its votaries to describe strict adherence to the Five Fundamentals of the Christian faith ,namely,
1. The Inspiration of the Bible by the Holy spirit and thanks to it the inerrancy of the Scripture. 2. The Virgin Birth of Christ 3. The belief that Christ’s death was the atonement for sin 4. The Bodily Resurrection of Christ & 5. The historical reality of Christ’s miracles.
Along similar lines , there are fundamentals which the very orthodox and right wing radicals of all other religions swear by. Hence, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish , Sikh , even Buddhist fundamentalisms. Embattled forms of spirituality as they are described, they can be both defensive and offensive. The extreme offensiveness has resulted in the formation of terror outfits that have become a nightmare not only for governments but also for you and me .
Far less offensive and much more interesting to reflect upon and categorise are the other orthodoxies which govern our lives. Foremost among them I would place food fundamentalism.. The broad division is into Veggies and Non veggies. The Veggies can be further classified into 3 fundamentalisms- Religion dictated, Caste dictated and Health oriented. The Jains obviously lead the Pack in the religious category. ‘Ahimsa paramo dharma’ is their credo. They wont shed the blood even of a white ant or a mosquito. Extreme herbivores , they avoid onions. No ban on milk though. Eggs are a no- no. Gujju shopkeepers don’t stock eggs. I wonder whether they know that market eggs generally are unfertilized eggs and therefore eating them doesn’t constitute himsa ( violence or killing ) of any prospective life.
Among Hindus , caste generally decides whether flesh , fish and fowl are eatable or not. The South Brahmins, in general, are vegetarian fundamentalists, the no-eggs, no-onion types. Filter coffee is integral to the Tambrahm life style and milk is integral to FC. So they can’t object to milk. But milk is an animal product . Drawing milk is like drawing blood ! This sub-class of veg. fundamentalism is an offshoot of animal rights activism, ahimsa’s close cousin. Long before Maneka Gandhi was born, saw a cow or a goat, Mahatma Gandhi had boycotted cow’s milk. Only extreme illness persuaded him to agree to take goat’s milk.
Obsession with health cuts across religion and caste barriers. Are humans meant by nature to be herbivores or carnivores ? The question has not been convincingly answered either way. But there is the general acceptance of the idea that somehow plant food is lighter , easier on the digestive system etc. So you have vegetarians by choice or by medical compulsion in all castes and communities.
Veg fundamentalists look down upon the Non Veggies , sniff & show disapproval of kitchens , dining rooms , homes, restaurants where non veg items are cooked , served , eaten…Some housing societies in Mumbai do not allow Non –Veg eaters to become members. Non Veg affianadoes use equally vehement retaliatory tactics. But they are mainly confined to words and attitudes. They pour utter scorn on their antagonists. Veggies are just vegetables in their eyes, incapable of human passion, action and high heroics. Just breathing corpses in other words ! Thus the bloodless war goes on between the carnivores and omnivores on the one side and the herbivores on the other.
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