The India that I Bear
While attending classes of Social Geography of India, in the 3rd sem of my MA degree, I remember our lecturer describing India as a Salad bowl. Now Melting Pot I'd heard but Salad Bowl was a completely different take, meaning that all our individual cultures and beliefs remained in tact while there was still a lot of mixing.
I agree with it mostly, because we still do try to differentiate between ourselves and the 'others', Bengalis and Tamils and Gujratis, so on and so forth; yet there is so much of who we are and what we do that are similar. After all this is what makes us Indian.
Not getting into the subject of the adoption of 'western' cultural practices, I'll just talk about my experience of being Indian. I am a born and bred Calcuttan (this is from the time when Kolkata was still Calcutta), that is West Bengal in East India, although my ancestors are from East Bengal(now Bangladesh); That is too many identities all at once as I like eating my aloo posto (very West Bengali) as well as my murighonto (East Bengali). Considering that wasn't enough I happened to live my early adult life(5 yrs to be precise) in Delhi and absorbed some of the punjabiness too, my husband still finds it funny when I talk in the punjabi-ized hindi.. also many bengalis don't understand the expressions I use such as 'I am totally vella(jobless, not as in unemployed but free)', 'oh my god you're a fuchha(junior)' or 'lets go to the theka(liquor store)' or 'dukhi aatma'(depressed soul is the literal meaning but used very lightly and not very often used by people outside delhi), I even happened to identify a woman being from Delhi just coz she used the word 'dukhi aatma' then we lost ourselves in conversations about Aloo Chaat, Tikki and Paranthewali gali in Dilli 6, yes, that's Chandni Chowk and yes, it looks exactly like it's shown in the movie. There are some days when the cravings for Butter Chicken, Kaali daal and nan are so strong that I can smell them in Dresden
During my stay in Delhi I happened to get close to a Tamil Family who cooked traditional south-indian food and followed tamil rituals. There I learnt about south india food different from dosa and idli. I developed a taste for authentic Rasams and Morkuzhambu, vadai and many other things I cant even begin to pronounce much less type it out. In diwali I've had their traditional til(sesame)oil massaged in my head before sunrise and also had Dial lehiyam, I hope I am right about the names because I did have a chyawanprash -like ayurvedic paste pushed in my mouth. Now the funny thing was that they also followed UP rituals because they are a Tamil Iyer married to UP Agarwal family so as crazy as it may sound, I sang bhajans at lakshmi Puja and also lit my share of kuthu vilakus, in fact I even got one gifted to me by them at my wedding. SO along with the south indian food I even ate meethi puri with pheeka raita, not to mention the different varieties of paranthas. The witnessing of the different festivals of Karva Chauth and Pongal in the same household was a potpourri. I can very proudly claim that sankranti to me is not just peethe/puli/payesh but also pongal.
To get this sort of exposure to Indian cultures one has to be very very lucky because most Indians don't get the opportunity to or rather they don't seek it out. The melange of North Indian extravagance, South Indian traditionalism and Bengali intellectualism is a very rare combination which I do not claim to possess but certainly tried to imbibe. And in having this experience I do not think I have lost my individual identity rather it has only made it stronger. Even today there's nowhere I'd rather be but in Calcutta surrounded by my family and friends but I do prefer Kanjivarams to Balucharis, and sometimes the Butter chicken overrides the Machher Jhol
I agree with it mostly, because we still do try to differentiate between ourselves and the 'others', Bengalis and Tamils and Gujratis, so on and so forth; yet there is so much of who we are and what we do that are similar. After all this is what makes us Indian.
Not getting into the subject of the adoption of 'western' cultural practices, I'll just talk about my experience of being Indian. I am a born and bred Calcuttan (this is from the time when Kolkata was still Calcutta), that is West Bengal in East India, although my ancestors are from East Bengal(now Bangladesh); That is too many identities all at once as I like eating my aloo posto (very West Bengali) as well as my murighonto (East Bengali). Considering that wasn't enough I happened to live my early adult life(5 yrs to be precise) in Delhi and absorbed some of the punjabiness too, my husband still finds it funny when I talk in the punjabi-ized hindi.. also many bengalis don't understand the expressions I use such as 'I am totally vella(jobless, not as in unemployed but free)', 'oh my god you're a fuchha(junior)' or 'lets go to the theka(liquor store)' or 'dukhi aatma'(depressed soul is the literal meaning but used very lightly and not very often used by people outside delhi), I even happened to identify a woman being from Delhi just coz she used the word 'dukhi aatma' then we lost ourselves in conversations about Aloo Chaat, Tikki and Paranthewali gali in Dilli 6, yes, that's Chandni Chowk and yes, it looks exactly like it's shown in the movie. There are some days when the cravings for Butter Chicken, Kaali daal and nan are so strong that I can smell them in Dresden
During my stay in Delhi I happened to get close to a Tamil Family who cooked traditional south-indian food and followed tamil rituals. There I learnt about south india food different from dosa and idli. I developed a taste for authentic Rasams and Morkuzhambu, vadai and many other things I cant even begin to pronounce much less type it out. In diwali I've had their traditional til(sesame)oil massaged in my head before sunrise and also had Dial lehiyam, I hope I am right about the names because I did have a chyawanprash -like ayurvedic paste pushed in my mouth. Now the funny thing was that they also followed UP rituals because they are a Tamil Iyer married to UP Agarwal family so as crazy as it may sound, I sang bhajans at lakshmi Puja and also lit my share of kuthu vilakus, in fact I even got one gifted to me by them at my wedding. SO along with the south indian food I even ate meethi puri with pheeka raita, not to mention the different varieties of paranthas. The witnessing of the different festivals of Karva Chauth and Pongal in the same household was a potpourri. I can very proudly claim that sankranti to me is not just peethe/puli/payesh but also pongal.
To get this sort of exposure to Indian cultures one has to be very very lucky because most Indians don't get the opportunity to or rather they don't seek it out. The melange of North Indian extravagance, South Indian traditionalism and Bengali intellectualism is a very rare combination which I do not claim to possess but certainly tried to imbibe. And in having this experience I do not think I have lost my individual identity rather it has only made it stronger. Even today there's nowhere I'd rather be but in Calcutta surrounded by my family and friends but I do prefer Kanjivarams to Balucharis, and sometimes the Butter chicken overrides the Machher Jhol
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