bon appetit!

yesterday was vishu... which is the mallu new year ... it also happens to be the new year for tams... (if i don't mention this here, big boss will go 'hmmp' at me! :P )

like any other mallu festival, vishu is also just another excuse for mallus to go around wearing their crisp white shirts and starched dhotis and have a huge meal on a banana leaf...

no mallu festival is complete without a huge stomach-stretching meal! and its called a 'sadhya' and there's nothing sad about them except that we have only one stomach to stuff all the food into! these are literally mini-orgies where mountains (some might call them mounds, but that depends on which side of the vindhyas you are from!) of rice are polished off with almost a dozen other accompaniments... and you better not try say the names of the dishes to any hot-blooded north indian else he will bloody your crisp white shirt assuming you were saying rude things to him and his ancestors!

no mallu sadhya is complete without a few basic dishes including avial, olan or kalan, sambar, ingi-pulli, thoran, pachadi, papadam, payasam, banana chips, chakaraperati (sweetened banana chips)... trust me, all these dishes taste much better than they sound! :P

and then while i was recovering from a huge meal by wallowing all over the couch like a beached whale, i started thinking... which is what i do when i am full and satiated...
among other things i thought, i realised that its not only the mallu festivals which are about food...

most hindu festivals are gastronomical celebrations... and i think that's the single most important reason why kids love festivals and all of us have fond memories of festival celebrations... whether it is diwali or holi or vishu or pongal or navratri or teej or khojagiri or any other festival of any of the hundreds of communities in india always have some focus on the unique kind of food that is associated with that festival...

and somehow food plays an important part in these festivals because, i think, food generates a sense of well-being and prosperity and peace in the community... a well-fed person, like a well-fed lion, is always less likely to snap or growl or be a general nuisance to the soceity at large!

i'm all for all our festivals and i believe that they should be celebrated with all the elaborate ritual and gaiety... and on those days, keep aside your chronic concern for calories and just dig in... bon appetit! :)

celebrations away from home

festivals are celebrated and rituals are followed with a lot more vigour by people when they are away from their homes/ land.

i noticed this first on campus when the entire student community in the hostel used to celebrate festivals like diwali and holi with a lot more enthusiasm and vigour than they normally would back home.

i recently read an article in the times of india about the onam celebrations in mumbai. the article had various malayalees reminiscing about how they celebrated onam in their villages back in kerala. these fond memories now inspire the malayalees all over the world (except, maybe in kerala itself) to relive the rituals and traditions of this festival.i would daresay that you could enjoy a more traditional onam celebration and meal in mumbai or dubai than in thiruvananthapuram itself!

i would assume this is the case with most other communities too.

i am sure all of us have our quota of cousins, relatives and friends in the us/ london/ australia, etc. who strive to keep their culture alive by attending bharatnatyam, carnatic music, kathak, tabla classes with a lot more vigour than they would if they were in their own home-land. i have noticed that this group also is very particular about performing various traditional rituals including pujas, punyajanam, festivals, etc. which they would not be following if they were back home.

i believe this zeal is born more from the need for the comfort from the sense of identity that they can hold on to than from the concern to keep their 'culture' alive.

and i think this is more true for the first-generation expatriate who has had some prior experience and exposure to some of these traditions before they departed to foreign shores.

distance not only seems to make the heart grow fonder, but also more zealous about our roots!